


Beware, the Snallygaster!

by AllenbysEyes



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen, Government Conspiracies, Hints of a larger story, Slow Burn, Snallygaster
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-12 04:22:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13539624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllenbysEyes/pseuds/AllenbysEyes
Summary: Ford joins an old friend (and older flame) in Maryland to track down a mythical beast. He soon discovers that there might be more afoot than a simple monster sighting...though the creature's certainly dangerous enough on its own. Set in my usual continuity, the same weekend as the last two stories.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my latest story! I don't plan on this being one of my longer fics, but it will set in motion an ongoing story arc that I hope to use in future works. Thanks for everyone for reading and please leaves comments or kudos if you like it!

**July 28th, 2018**

**Kirkland, WA**

Ford always felt uncomfortable in restaurants, even in a "casual" lakeside one with $40 steaks and $15 cocktails. He hated spending money on things as frivolous as fancy food. He didn't like dressing up or shaving with an actual razor blade (burnt stubble would just raise questions that non-family members wouldn't understand). And he didn't like the inevitable stares and whispers whenever someone noticed his polydactylism.

Nonetheless, it was a nice summer day with an old friend with some tantalizing information about an old mystery. Even the food he'd ordered, a fillet of sole with red wine, wasn't bad, though he found it obnoxiously overpriced. And that made up for any awkwardness.

He watched Pauline Dietrich, now in her early fifties, sitting across from him, scarfing down shrimp tacos with a marked lack of elegance. She looked the part of a film noir  _femme fatale_ , with her faded blonde hair, a pinched, severe face and an alluring dark dress, but these were offset by her harsh Chicago accent and trucker's vocabulary.

"Did you ever wonder what would have happened if...?" Ford asked, unable to finish.

"If you hadn't vanished into another dimension for thirty fucking years?" she completed the thought, licking some sauce off her chin. "All the time, Ford. But I figure it's not doing either of us any good to think about it."

"Were you ever married?" he asked hesitantly, tapping his fingers on the table.

"Once, or twice. Who keeps track? You know how it is. You meet a guy who says he was abducted by the same alien creatures as you, you bond, you have hot sex, then you get married. Before you know it he's chasing you around the house with a handgun claiming that you're an extraterrestrial pod person."

Ford stared blankly at her, not sure if she was joking or not.

"Anyway...yeah, that didn't work out. But I got a decent alimony payment out of the deal, so it doesn't bother me."

"Well, I would say an accusation of being a pod person isn't grounds for divorce," Ford argued. "Certainly such disputes and misunderstandings could easily be cleared up through careful, reasoned dialogue..."

"You would  **think**  that, but not really," Pauline said. "I don't know what the aliens did to Brad, but...he was not right in the head. Careful, reasoned dialogue was beyond his capabilities."

"That's not unknown, though it isn't necessarily common. People experience all kinds of traumas..."

"Sure, I had headaches and nightmares and weird flashbacks and Missing Time as a result of my experiences all the time. But that was different. I didn't hurt anybody as a result. I don't wish Brad any harm, I hope he got better, but I couldn't live with it. And I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't insinuate that I'm some kinda bitch for not standing by him."

"I'm not  _insinuating_  anything," Ford said defensively. "I'm in no position to lecture anyone about relationships. Even before the Portal...it wasn't exactly my strong suit."

"Yeah, you're right. You thought Arby's in the back of a van was a hot date."

"Hey, where else can you get a cheap roast beef sandwich?"

"My fridge."

Ford smiled at this, happy that they'd recaptured some of their old repartee, despite not seeing each other in decades. He and Pauline had known each other off and on through the years, attending UFO conventions and alternative science expos. And for a brief time, a few months not long before Ford's disappearance, they had been a couple.

Pauline, originally from Palatine, Illinois, was an alien abductee who'd been taken at least four times by aliens in her childhood, first at age nine, most recently at age seventeen. Or so she claimed. Ford didn't see any reason to doubt her, though her stories often seemed rehearsed and excessively detailed, down to her recitation about the weird implant scar near her bellybutton. Either she was authentic or a really, really good faker. Ford was intrigued by her stories and her boisterous personality, and they started dating.

She often claimed to be traumatized by her experience, but Ford didn't see much of that, aside from her nightmares during the times they slept together. Which were uncomfortable (they were more night terrors than regular nightmares, complete with screams and thrashing and grabbing), but preferable to being alone. Something had definitely gone wrong with her, something which her wild, shaggy haircut and tough girl attitude could only hide so much.

Mostly they'd broken up because Pauline didn't much care for the sciency side of her experience. Or Ford's handling of it, anyway. He asked her endlessly about the abduction, forcing her to recite details she'd gone over a thousand times, whether at home or in car rides or over dinner or even, to her chagrin, in bed. At first she was flattered by the attention, then she quickly grew bored and frustrated by the interrogations, especially coming from her boyfriend. After awhile, it seemed that Ford regarded her more as a specimen than a significant other or even a person, and his charms faded for her.

And so they broke up, after Ford came over to her place and asked to see the implant, which she claimed to have kept in her bedroom. A shouting match and a coffee mug thrown at Ford's head ended their relationship.

And he disappeared shortly afterwards, having made no effort to apologize or reconcile with Pauline. Ford thought about her often, though she was very, very far down his list of regrets.

Pauline, having gotten in touch with McGucket, gained some loose idea of what happened, but didn't care enough to follow up closely. Though for some reason, she thought about him a lot. Maybe a guy you date when you're young seems a lot better than the jerkoffs and jackasses you date when you're older.

And yet here they were, thirty-five years later, not quite reconciled but already comfortable with each other, brought together over a random call and a mutual interest in the Strange.

"You contacted me about the Snallygaster," Ford said. "What made you think of me? How did you even know I was back in this dimension?"

"You were in the paper about that business with Preston Northwest," Pauline reminded him. "Glad to see you're using your nerd powers to do some good. One fewer shit heel in Washington, the better, I say. But it made me wonder why the hell you hadn't gotten in touch with me, if you've been back all this time."

"So... _is_  there a Snallygaster?" Ford asked suspiciously. "Or is this all a pretext to...?"

"To get into your pants?" Pauline scowled. "Ha! Don't flatter yourself, Fordsy. You were a stiff three decades ago and I can only imagine three decades jerking off in the Multiverse didn't make you any more virile."

"Don't call me Fordsy," Ford muttered. The nickname reminded him of someone far less pleasant.

"But no, I have a friend who lives in DC and they wrote me about a recent sighting of this Snallygaster thing. It was a legend I was dimly aware of from my UFO days, but I never thought it was real. Just seemed like one of those weird old wives' tales or folk myths that gets passed down by the gullible."

"I've always wondered that myself," Ford said thoughtfully. "I try to keep an open mind about paranormal phenomena and interdimensional beings - I've seen so much weirdness in  _this_  dimension alone that I'm not about to reject  **anything**  out of hand. But so much turns out to be hoaxes or fakes or misinterpretations of perfectly natural phenomena and animals that it's hard not to be discouraged."

"Yeah," Pauline said, passing him a newspaper clipping. "Though this seems pretty concrete to me."

Ford skimmed the clipping, which had a blurred picture of a huge, flying creature flying towards the camera. The headline read:

**SNALLYGASTER FOUND?**

_**Maryland myth flies again** _

"You know the Snallygaster, I assume?" Pauline asked.

"Yes, it's supposed to be a dragon or a flying serpent that lives in rural Maryland and West Virginia. Supposedly dates back to German colonists who gave it its name. Supposed to be half-reptile, half-bird, with a sharp beak, weird tentacles and a piercing, supersonic scream. Feeds on people and livestock."

"Sounds pretty out there to me," Pauline said.

"Yeah, but I've seen stranger things out in Gravity Falls, believe me. Heck, my brother and our niece and nephew found a whole nest of petrified dinosaurs under an old mine!"

"Remember that convention we attended in, was that December 1981?" Pauline prodded. "They had a lecturer from INFO blather on and on  _and on_  about the history of this thing and tying it together with all these weird dragon and serpent myths from the Mid-Atlantic states. Something about a serpent in western Pennsylvania so big it ate a one-room schoolhouse, or all those giant snakes in Gettysburg...all manner of strangeness. Gets swept under the rug because of Bigfoot and Loch Ness Monster, but no less common."

"I'm guessing that's why you thought of me?" Ford asked, still suspicious, still looking at the clipping.

Pauline sighed and heaved her shoulders, playing with her necklace.

"Maybe you were a  _little_  right...I  **did**  want to see you again," she admitted. "And I guess this gave me an excuse. Still, imagine if you could catch this thing and prove it was real! It would be the find of the century."

"I might not go  **that**  far," Ford grumbled. "I mean, I shut down an apocalypse a few years ago...But, this certainly piques my interest. You know a way to a man's heart, Pauline."

"Guess I'm still good for one thing, if nothing else!" she said. "Maybe we can even work together!"

"I'd like that," Ford said. "Could always use a partner, especially an old friend."

"Plus you'll need  _someone_  to keep you grounded when you aren't out there chasing beasties."

"I do perfectly fine on my own," Ford insisted. "But you've got yourself a deal."

And the two of them shook hands across the table. Ford smiled, happy at the opportunity to track an elusive beast and rejoin an old friend. At the very least, he thought, it would be a change of scenery.

* * *

As their dinner wrapped up, a boyish thirty-something man across the way handed the waiter his credit card. He studied the couple and took some notes on a napkin, which he slipped into his pocket. As soon as the waiter returned, he excused himself and went into the lobby to make a phone call.

"Yes, she is here," he said. "Just like we expected. She's in contact with Stanford Pines."

"Pines?" a gravelly voice barked on the other end. "That name sounds familiar."

"There are two twin brothers, both of whom live out in rural Oregon. One is kind of a huckster, and probably no threat to us. The other - this man - is a scientist who specializes in abnormal, supernatural kind of stuff."

"A crank then?"

"Very much so! But cranks sometimes stumble across things that they aren't meant to see, too. And unlike other people, they keep digging. And we can't rely on people knowing that they're cranks and dismissing them when they find stuff."

"Especially not...Shit, this is the guy who brought down Preston Northwest, right?"

"I believe so. Makes him even more dangerous."

"Hmm." Silence on the other end.

The man at the restaurant watched a small boy run past his feet with his frantic mother in pursuit, apologizing as she scooted past. He nodded and smiled indulgently as he waited for a response from his contact.

"All right," the answer finally came. "Keep an eye on him. We don't want people like these to know what we're working on."

"Understood."

"We're trying to rewrite the entire history of the United States, and we can't have some flying saucer fanatics standing in our way. If they can expose a small-time swindler like Northwest...well, we don't want to worry about what they could do with something that's actually important."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Keep an eye on those two. This Smelly Gas thing is just the sort of wild goose chase that should keep them occupied while we prepare. Keep them investigating as long as you can. Throw them a bone, help them out, whatever. Just make sure that they stay busy while we do our work."

And the phone hung up. Just as the call ended, the man spotted Ford and Pauline exiting the restaurant. He ducked into a corner as they passed...it wouldn't do him any good if they recognized him here, before he returned to Maryland where he was needed.

There was important work to do. And if he needed some kind of weird flying dragon to help, so much the better


	2. Chapter 2

**July 29th, 2018**

**Frederick, MD**

Ford and Pauline stood along the edge of a homestead just outside town, Ford wearing his usual lab coat, Pauline in a coal-gray trench coat. They were interviewing the first witness identified in the newspaper accounts, a flannel-wearing store owner named Bobby Keel.

"I was fixing a flat tire on I-70 when I heard the screech," Keel said in a mild Appalachian accent. "It weren't like anything I'd ever heard before! At first it sounded like an eagle or some kinda bird of prey, but it welled up until it was so loud you could hear the sky rumble! For the next few minutes I couldn't hear a damn thing, just the ringing in my ears and the echo of the damn screamy thing."

"What happened next?" Ford prodded, taking notes.

"I sat down on the ground and covered my ears, could only hear the ringing. Then I looked at the sky and saw it. Giant critter flying right over my head! Looked to have a wingspan of about 40 feet at least!"

"How good a look did you get?"

"Pretty long! It flew directly over my head for about forty seconds."

"What color was it?"

"I dunno, orange-brown, maybe. I didn't get a good look at its face or its features, just that it had these long, scaly-lookin' wings. Not only was it huge, but it didn't look like any kinda bird I'd ever seen."

Ford found the witness credible, even if he couldn't provide all the details that the scientist wanted. Pauline, though, was more skeptical, crossing her arms and scowling.

"How did you figure the wingspan was 40 feet?" she asked.

"Just common sense," Keel said, nodding.

"Uh-huh. Did you have a ruler or a tape measure to measure it with?"

"Course not."

"You often see forty foot birds flying overhead?"

"No, this is my first."

Mr. Keel must have been a little slow on the uptake, for he took these questions in earnest. But Ford caught on to her sarcasm and grew quietly angry watching Pauline's interrogation continue.

"How did you scale it?"

"Just an educated guess," Keel admitted, scratching his head. "I mean, it was bigger than my car."

"How long is your car?"

"Ma'am, I dunno, 12 feet?"

"Thank you, Mr. Keel, for your help," Ford interjected. "One more question. Did you ever see or hear it again?"

"No, I didn't."

"Obviously you got your hearing back," Pauline said.

"Yeah, my ears was ringing for about twelve hours after I saw it. Had to fall asleep and wake up to refresh them."

"How convenient."

"Thanks again," Ford said, offering the witness a gloved hand to shake. Pauline just waved as the befuddled witness walked into his car and drove off. The two investigators watched him drive off.

"Was that really necessary?" Ford barked.

"What?"

"Giving him the third degree like that."

"Ford, you should know how much people who see these things exaggerate."

"People won't be inclined to help us if we treat them like liars."

"Just think about it. Do you  **really**  think that the Snallygaster's got a forty foot wingspan? Do you really think he'd be able to determine that from watching it from below."

"It was an  _estimate_."

"It was a  **guess** ," she snapped. "Big difference. The longest known bird is the Andean condor, and it only has a twelve foot wingspan. Heck, those thunderbirds that supposedly live in the Southwest aren't reported as being any more than fifteen feet across.  _Forty feet_  would be absolutely ludicrous."

"Since when are you, Miss Abductee 1979, the world's foremost skeptic?"

"That was four decades and a million mysteries ago, Ford. Get with the times. Besides, it's not skeptical just to try and pin down a more realistic view of a mythical creature."

Ford scowled and shook his head. He was more than a little annoyed that Pauline, of all people, would discount such a story, crazy as it sounded on the surface. But he'd seen  _crazier_  things than a forty foot bird before. The possibilities of such a giant beast roaming loose both fascinated and terrified him. And he wouldn't discount  _anything_  like that until he'd investigated further.

But maybe Pauline had a point. Maybe it was a creature of more mundane, if still intimidating size, exaggerated by a guy too scared and surprised by an unexpected creature to take an accurate measurement.

Though that still didn't explain the screech. Or a host of other things.

Like, why Pauline would contact him after several decades apart. Or why she would draw his attention to a fascinating but commonplace bit of folklore on the other side of the country. Or why, having done so, she seemed so eager to dismiss it as a tall tale or an exaggeration.

He wouldn't ask those questions out loud, at least not yet. For now, he had a monster to find.

* * *

The rest of the day offered more of the same. Ford and Pauline talked to about a half-dozen people in total, from a waitress who'd seen the creature flying overhead while driving home to work, to a teenage couple whose necking had been interrupted by that damn screech. Some of them caught a decent glimpse of the creature, others only heard its deafening cry, but the reports were consistent enough to keep Ford intrigued.

He asked firm but gentle questions to probe for details, while Pauline tried to deflate the witnesses. He lost his annoyance with Pauline after awhile; a good cop-bad cop, Mulder and Scully routine helped even out inconsistencies and weirdness in their testimonies and make things more credible.

"It's been consistently seen in an area of about fifty square miles," Ford calculated while munching a sandwich at a diner. "Seven people have seen the Snallygaster in the past month. That's a regular flap, in UFO terminology! Usually this creature's only seen once in a blue moon, but now he's making regular appearances, and in very populated area."

"What's your take on that?" Pauline asked.

"Something must be rousting him out of hiding," he said thoughtfully. "Maybe some kind of land development or environmental change. Maybe he - or she - just had babies and needs to feed them regularly."

"Yeah," Pauline said thoughtfully. She looked down at the table, as if wanting to add something more substantial, but never did. She let her "yeah..." trail off into nothing, as Ford launched obliviously into another monologue about the Unknown.

* * *

Next, Ford tried to pinpoint the central location of the sightings for a most likely location. They drove around the county, looking at highways and side roads and plains and mountains, trying to figure where the Snallygaster might be located.

"If I had to guess," Ford said, standing by the side of a road, "it's probably somewhere in the Blue Ridge Mountains." He traced out a path through the sky with his finger, then pointed into a purple smudge on the horizon. "Imagine this creature living in some kind of cave or old mine or a mountainside retreat."

"Sounds logical to me," Pauline agreed, leaning against a fence.

"Now, based on what we could determine from the witnesses we interviewed, it's mostly frequently flying east to west when it's spotted. But the mountains are to our east...Presumably the creature was taking off then, possibly to look for food or shelter in the west."

"You're missing something big, buddy," Pauline said. "Like, no reports of this thing attacking anyone or picking up people or food. Isn't that it's thing? It carries people off to its nest to eat them?"

"It's been alleged to do that, yes," Ford agreed. "But that could well be a myth or exaggeration, like so much else that's said about undiscovered species."

"So, hold up here. Maybe I missed something. You think it's more plausible that the creature's forty feet long than that it might eat people?"

"Humans have an annoying, self-serving tendency to see all animals, and especially large ones, as monstrous or evil. In my experience, they tend to be misunderstood. While I'm sure the Snallygaster must eat some kind of meat - it  _is_  a bird, after all, and virtually all are carnivorous - given its supposed size I wonder if humans would even be a desirable culinary option."

Pauline sounded mildly grossed out by Ford's indifference to the prospect of a giant, man-eating bird.

"So, you're saying that the giant birds won't people because..."

"Too skinny," Ford said, his face twisted in disgust - more from sympathy with the bird, Pauline suspected, than the humans. "Not enough meat and fat content. Why eat a human when there are tasty cows or deer around?"

"Because they're scarier that way," Pauline said, knowing that's what he wanted to hear.

As she expected, Ford nodded. "Precisely. Who needs the truth when you have a nice, scary, cannibal tall tale? Now, maybe in desperation they would attack people, like lions and wolves and other large predators do. It's not  _impossible_. But I really doubt that they would eat humans as a primary food source. Would need some evidence before I accepted that."

The wind blew gently, ruffling the grass beside them and their coats. Several gray clouds rolled overhead, blocking out the sun. Somewhere in the sky above, a hawk screeched and flew past in search of prey.

"Well," Pauline said, watching it chase after a smaller bird, "I hope we don't get to find out."

* * *

As Pauline drove them back into Frederick for dinner, Ford read through an email he'd received from Dipper.

"Holy Moses," Ford exclaimed. "I sent my nephew on a mission that I assumed was busy work this weekend. He was investigating Foxfire sightings out near Gravity Falls. Turns out that one of his friends had a very close encounter with one of them, and experienced some kind of visions."

"Visions, huh?" Pauline bristled with discomfort as he said that.

"Didn't say  **what**  they were, but indicated they were some kind of animate creatures who...showed his friend her future, or something like that? I'll have to read this more carefully when we get back to the hotel. Or maybe even call him."

The two drove silently for another few minutes. Pauline gripped the wheel, as the mention of glowing balls and close encounters and mysterious entities brought back painful memories...

And Ford, when he finally spoke, didn't help.

"Did you ever...When you encountered the aliens, did they ever show you anything about..."

"Let's think about somewhere to eat," Pauline interrupted curtly. "Maybe a  **real**  restaurant this time instead of some gross greasy spoon, huh?"

Ford looked away awkwardly; Pauline stared out the windshield, angry and ashamed at her reaction, but angrier still that Ford would even bring  **that**  up.

As they drove, raindrops started splashing against the window glass.

* * *

The rain was pouring down by the time Bob Keel returned home. After his interview with Ford and Pauline, he went to work and spent most of the day at his shop, selling loads of fishing equipment to middle aged sportsmen, then fielded a phone call about an order of sporting rifles for the fall. Nothing overly exciting or interesting; as boring and aggravating as a working Sunday could be.

He was happy to unwind and watch TV; he had Mondays off, at least, and planned to do as little as possible. His dog Rufus, a hyperactive Irish setter, greeted him at the door. He fed the pet first, then made himself a sandwich and beer and sat down, turning on the tail end of a baseball game. Orioles-Marlins, 6-2, bottom of the 8th. Perfect.

As he ate, he became dimly aware of a rumbling noise outside. Rufus whimpered and stared at the ceiling, then started to bark. Keel peeled himself off his seat, listening to the ruckus and trying to calm his dog.

Instinctively, he rushed to his bedroom and grabbed a shotgun. The dog's bark grew louder, even though the commotion overhead had ceased for a moment.

Keel gripped the weapon tight, unsure what to do. He could rush outside and confront whatever it was - hopefully just a helicopter or a plane or something explicable, not what he dreaded in his gut that it might be - but he reckoned that might be suicidal. If it was any kind of creature or monster or threat, best to stay inside and force it to come to him.

After a moment, Rufus laid down, though he continued letting out occasional agitated woof. Keel sighed and patted the dog's head, then made his way back over to his chair and set his gun down beside him. He took another drink and turned up the volume.

Then it began. The noise.

The  _scream_.

The Snallygaster. As deafening and horrifying as before.

It didn't seem to come from outside, even though Rufus was barking his head off. Even though it shook the walls of his home. It didn't even seem to be audible in the usual sense.

Instead, it seemed to be  _inside his head_.

He dropped to his knees and closed his eyes, feeling his temples throb, feeling his eardrums ring with pain. His whole body shook along with the cabin. He rubbed his head frantically, hoping to make the sound and the awful feeling go away.

Instead, it grew louder. Louder.

And so he screamed. As loud as he could. But no one answered.

No one even seemed to hear.

* * *

They'd rented a double economy hotel room with two beds. Purely platonic. Ford hadn't slept with a woman in decades, and Pauline wasn't especially interested tonight...least of all after Ford's breach of tact.

Anyway, she didn't want him to see what she'd brought with her.

"We had a pretty successful day," Ford said optimistically as he undressed down to a t-shirt. "Interviewed all of the eyewitnesses, looked at some of the locations where the creature was sighted. Tomorrow we can begin the real fun stuff."

"And what fun stuff is that?" Pauline asked, sitting on her bed and reading her phone.

"Monster hunting," Ford said with a broad smile. "I guarantee you that we'll be able to pinpoint the most likely location for the Snallygaster's nest. And then!"

"Then what? Are you gonna capture it, put it in a cage and take it back to Oregon with you?"

"I, erm, don't think that would be feasible." Ford seemed taken aback by her attitude.

"What a waste of a good monster," Pauline said. "Can't leave any mystery in the world, can we?"

Now Ford grew angry. He'd been putting up with her sour attitude and digs all day, and didn't have any more patience for them.

" **You**  invited  _me_  to help you find this thing," he reminded her. "What's with the attitude? Why did you want me to come if you're just gonna poo-poo everything and insist it's nothing?"

Pauline groaned. "It's not that I think it's  _nothing_ ," Pauline said. "I'm just yanking your chain a little bit. Trying to get you to see some perspective before leaping into the crazy unknown."

"Well, maybe you could do so in a way that's a little less obnoxious and insulting. It's helpful when you're trying to talk a witness into something more reasonable, but..."

"Like how you brought up my abduction experiences earlier? That didn't seem very  _reasonable_  to me."

"I'm sorry," Ford shrugged, letting down his anger for a moment. It soon returned: "But you were crabby long before that."

"I'm  _crabby_?" Pauline exploded. "What the fuck do you  **expect**  me to be?"

After that explosion, the two old friends turned away from each other. After a long moment's awkward silence, Pauline got up and walked over to Ford, clasping his shoulder.

"Ford, I'm..." At the last second, she stopped herself from apologizing. From her point of view, she had nothing to apologize _for_. But she continued in a much more gentle tone.

"Ford, I've had a rotten life. Two shitty marriages, another boyfriend disappearing into the Multiverse, a lifetime of bad dreams and shitty memories and awful conventions and being branded a freak. Being someone who can't hold down a job, who's rated mentally unstable, who spends her whole life living down a nightmare that I didn't ask for, didn't want, and don't want to fucking talk about anymore. So, don't expect me to be Miss Mary Sunshine, all right?"

"Sure," Ford said, a little remorseful himself. "But I still don't understand..."

"I thought it might be fun," she interrupted, clutching him from behind...To Ford's visible discomfort. She pulled away.

"You know," she continued, "you always told me about how you would catalog weird creatures and find all their measurements and origins and weaknesses and all that weird stuff. Not sure how much of it I actually believed, but it certainly sounded like fun. So I see your name in the paper and think, what the hell? Maybe I'll give an old friend a call and see if we can go monster hunting together. I need some excitement in my life that's not, you know, running from a psychotic ex or a goddamn space alien."

Ford allowed himself a joke. "Well, how do we know that the Snallygaster _isn't_  a space alien?"

"That's a risk I'm willing to take," she assured him. The two smiled at each other and gave each other a brief, loose hug. Then they drifted to their respective beds, and Ford turned on the television without a further word. 

Outside, the rain finally stopped.

* * *

Ford was in the shower when Pauline received the phone call. She didn't recognize the number, thought it must be a telemarketer or a bill collector or something...though which would be ballsy enough to call her at 9:30 pm on a Sunday night...

"Hello?" she asked, agitated. She heard a weird click and an electronic buzz, which instantly put her on guard. 

"Hello? Who is this?" she repeated, more anxiously.

After a moment, a familiar snippet of conversation played back. She instantly recognized the voice on the other end:

"I've had a rotten life. Two shitty marriages, another boyfriend disappearing into the Multiverse, a lifetime of bad dreams and shitty memories and awful conventions and being branded a freak..."

She threw her phone against the wall, smashing it. She numbly stumbled back to her bed; trembling, she reached under her pillow and pulled out her .38 caliber pistol. 

She made sure all six chambers were loaded, then slipped it under her pillow again. Then went and collected her phone...which somehow was still working.

She shivered in terror as she saw she had a new text message. And her heart stopped when she actually read it:

**"WE'LL BE LISTENING"**


	3. Chapter 3

When Pauline woke up the next morning - she had only slept fitfully, though at least without one of her usual nightmares - Ford was already on his cell phone with someone. And the news clearly wasn't good.

"Bob Keel is dead? But how?" Pause as he listened and scratched his head. "That is certainly peculiar...Well, please let me know if you find out more."

He hung up and turned to Pauline, who sat up in bed. "Bob Keel? The first guy we talked to yesterday? What happened?"

"Someone from the Sheriff's Department found him dead at his place just before dawn," Ford said grimly. "No obvious cause of death. They found his body rigid on the floor with his face contorted in pain. Thought he might have had a heart attack or a seizure, but the preliminary reports seem to rule that out."

"How strange. He wasn't that old, was he?"

"Forty-three, I think they said."

"People that age don't just die," Pauline said ominously.

"Not without a cause," Ford agreed.

Pauline slowly pulled herself out of bed and fiddled with her hair. "Who were you talking with?"

"Someone I know," Ford said mysteriously.

"Who?" Pauline asked suspiciously. Her mind went to her firearm hidden under the pillow, wondering if  _They_  had gotten to Ford already.

"Well, we're gonna go meet him in a little bit," Ford said. "Guy named Wilcox from down in West Virginia. We've been in contact sporadically over the past year or two."

"Chet Wilcox?" Pauline's shoulders slumped with relief. She knew that name, and it wasn't anyone who concerned her.

"Yeah. He's known as kind of a crank, I guess, but...so am I, in most circles." Ford smiled awkwardly.

"The only person still hunting Mothman in 2018," Pauline marveled. "You sure know how to pick 'em, Ford."

"Well, no one was hunting the Snallygaster in 2018 until last month," Ford reminded her. "Somebody's gotta keep the flame burning or we'll never find the truth."

And Pauline chuckled at that, seeing a glimpse of the cocksure, self-righteous Ford she'd fallen for all those years ago. Hurriedly she scooted into the bathroom to get dressed, while Ford made another phone call.

* * *

"Boss, Pines and Dietrich arrived in Frederick yesterday. Dunno about her, but she's falling for it hook, line and sinker. Intercepted a couple of phone calls they made earlier today; they're contacting an expert cryptozoologist for help in tracking the Snallygaster down."

"Great. Who would think someone as brilliant as Stanford Pines would waste his time on a silly monster myth? Either way, it's not going to bother me much so long as they don't interfere. Keep tabs on them, and...do whatever you need to keep them distracted. We need some time to cover our tracks so JACOBIN isn't exposed."

"Yes, sir. I'll try getting in touch with them shortly."

* * *

At a glance, Chet Wilcox was your textbook West Virginia hillbilly. He wore khakis and flannel, sported a long black beard and had an Appalachian accent thicker than pancake batter. Between that and his not-inconsiderable gut, he would seem to belong on one of those Used To Be About History Channel shows chasing Sasquatch through the woods with a flashlight and a gas station Slim Jim. Yet when he talked to Ford and Pauline, he seemed much more intelligent than he let on.

"I been trackin' the Snallygaster's movements since the first sighting last month," he said. "Managed to calculate all the sighting locations - they were all within about fifty squares miles uh here. Think we got it pinned down to a hillside somewheres up in the Blue Ridge Mountains."

"Do you know  **which**  mountain?" Ford asked, a little irritated that Wilcox had mostly told him things he'd already sussed on his own.

"I have my suspicions," Wilcox said, clearing his throat. "There's a big ole hill called Mt. Chawkaway, named fer some Indian chief killed in Lord Dunmore's War o'er in Virginia. Why, I don't know; guess white men weren't picky 'bout place names in those days. Whatever, it's right near South Mountain and you can see it from the battlefield up there."

"What do you know about it?" Ford asked. "Have you ever been there?"

"Used to be a copper mine back in the day," Wilcox said. "Didn't find much, moved on pretty quick. But the mine's still there. Went up there once, back in '96 or so, did some hikin'. Mine had been closed off by then. Police said dumb tourists was climbin' in it and gettin' stuck and the State Troopers didn't want anybody else causin' trouble. So now it's just an ugly-ass hill between two pretty mountains."

"Do you think the Snallygaster's living in the mine?" Pauline asked.

"Could be," he said. "Hadn't heard anything 'bout the mine openin' back up, but then...I've been busy with my own research down in West Virginia."

Ford smiled. "Any news on the Mothman?"

"Not in some time," Wilcox admitted. "Thought I saw somethin' with the big glowin' red eyes last month, out near Cheat Mountain, but...it was just some kinda big bird scared the bejesus outta me. Man, did I feel like a sucker!"

Pauline glanced sidelong at Ford, smirking indulgently. Because she wondered if that's all Mothman was to begin with. But Ford shot her a glare of reproach.

"I'll have to devote some time to helping you sometime," Ford said. "Still, there's too much up in Oregon to afford many of these vacations."

"Yeah, and it's strange that y'all came all the way out here fer the Snallygaster," Wilcox admitted. "Quite a big trip for a little local legend."

"True, but a half-dozen sightings in a month is unique, isn't it? And now there's a dead man involved, too."

"Nothin' in the literature 'bout that," Wilcox said. "I mean sure, there's stories about the thing pickin' up people and critters and carryin' them off to eat 'em, but nothin' about them giving heart attacks or scarin' 'em to death. Would be a first, from my experience."

"Have to wonder if there's a connection, though," Ford said. "Seemed awfully convenient."

"Some things in life  _are_  awfully convenient," Pauline interjected. Her comment went unacknowledged by her male colleagues, too engrossed in theorizing to entertain skepticism.

"Anyway, can you take us up to the mountain today?" Ford asked. "Would be worth taking a look around, at least."

"Sure thing. 'Course, I gotta meet a friend up in Hagerstown today first, but that should only take a couple hours of my time. Maybe this afternoon 'round three?"

"I look forward to it," Ford agreed. "Would be nice to have a guide familiar with the area rather than stumbling around ourselves."

The two men shook hands and Wilcox bowed with exaggerated deference to Pauline, who smirked. As he left, the two investigators turned to each other for a moment.

"I know he seems a little...rustic, but he's a good guy," Ford said.

"I guess," Pauline said. "I'm sure he knows more about Mothman than just about anyone else."

"That's a safe bet," Ford agreed. "And that sort of knowledge comes in handy whenever you least expect it."

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Pauline asked suddenly.

"What do you mean?" Ford seemed confused.

"Let's go up to Mt. Chawkaway and check this monster out."

"Umm...but we're going up there with Chet later."

"Come on, Ford, do we  _really_  need some hillbilly to help us climb a mountain?" Pauline said.

"That hillbilly has spent his entire life studying the paranormal," Ford responded, irritated by her disdain. "I believe he should be accorded a little respect."

"Or he's wasted his whole life chasing after phantoms," Pauline chided. "Wasting time indulging fantasies while there are  **real**  monsters out there."

Though she wondered, as her words hung in the air, whether she and Ford were really any different.

* * *

Somewhere far from Frederick, a middle-aged man received an email from one of his contacts. When he saw the sender's name, he dismissed his secretary from the room to read it in private. It wasn't so encouraging as the phone call he'd entertained a little while ago.

**"Someone calling himself Hal Forrester is investigating our JACOBIN project. Per our sources, Hal Forrester is an old alias for Stanford Pines. He is already procuring documents and evidence pertaining to the project despite our efforts to mislead him. May have enough to incriminate or expose. Please advise."**

The Boss seethed with anger, then pounded his desk with his fist. Weren't they sending Stanford Pines on a wild goose chase to Maryland  _right now_? Didn't they have agents handling him directly? Wasn't he too busy tracking down weird redneck dragons to investigate musty old historical documents? Or maybe he was an even more brilliant multi-tasker than he'd imagined.

The possibility that there were two Stan Pines, and that one had "borrowed" the other's identity for years, somehow didn't occur to him. Not that it would have mattered much for his response.

The Boss hesitated for a long moment, trying to collect his thoughts before responding. Finally, he typed a simple, four-word message which he sent to three contacts on his list:

**"Send him a message."**

* * *

Chet Wilcox had driven about halfway from Frederick to Hagerstown when it happened.

He was in the middle of crooning off-key to Florida-Georgia Line when he spotted a shadow on the hood of his car. Curious, he looked up, expecting it to be a cloud or something moving in front of the Sun. What he saw made his jaw drop.

A giant bird, bigger than any he'd seen before, flying directly over him. Its features were obscured by the Sun, and he couldn't look directly at it from his position in the car. But he was absolutely certain that it was a living creature flying overhead, and not a plane or something else.

He wondered if he was the only one seeing it. He looked around and saw a few other cars on the road, but none of them seemed to be stopping or slowing. No one but him seemed to be reacting.

Then he heard it.

The  _screech_.

Even through the roof of a moving car, even with the sounds of a sub-mediocre pop country duo blaring on the stereo, it was too loud, too shrill, too otherworldly to ignore. It made Wilcox's ears short out; he felt ringing overtake everything else, and screamed.

Unable to concentrate, he drove his car to the side of the road, hoping for the pain to pass. Other cars honked as he scrambled past, but he ignored them. He was too focused on escaping. Waiting for the creature to make another screech, or to swoop down and attack him.

He couldn't stand the noise. Desperately he cranked up the radio, until he could hear nothing but music. Even at full volume, it was just the dimmest of drones over the ringing in his ear, the echoes from the creature's scream.

But it seemed to be enough. Because the ringing started to fade.

After several more minutes, dizzy and trembling, he staggered out of the car and onto the side of the road. He looked up and managed to see the Snallygaster overhead.

It was still hard to get a clear picture with the midday sun glaring down. But he spotted its huge wings, enough in and of themselves to grab a man. The sharp, gnarled claws on its feet. The hooked beak and the strange body texture, part-scale, part-feathers.

No mistake - it was a Snallygaster. There wasn't anything else it could be.

He wondered if this was some kind of a vision. Whether only he was able to hear and see the creature. Remembering what had happened to Mr. Keel the night before, he also wondered if it was a harbinger of his doom.

He felt almost relieved when he saw another car glide to a stop. Saw someone, a young woman in a pixie cut, lean out the window and gesture frantically at the clouds, muttering "What  **was**  that?" or something to that effect. So at least he wasn't the only one.

But when Wilcox looked up again, it had vanished.

* * *

"The name is Harry, Harry Stett," the young man at the information station said. "Of course, I know Mt. Chawkaway. It's not one of the more popular spots for sightseeing, mostly because the mining ruined a lot of the more handsome-looking ground. Mostly trees and shrubs and rocks and dirt any more. Not sure there are even any more animals up there aside from the occasional bird or snake."

Both Ford and Pauline thought Stett looked vaguely familiar. But neither of them could place him, exactly. He looked like a generically handsome young man, with light brown hair and a boyish, still-finishing-grad school appearance, wearing a navy blue polo shirt. His voice was soft, his diction perfect and accent bland.

He could be anyone from anywhere. Like Tad Strange, only even more banal. Which aroused in Ford a dim, unplaceable suspicion.

"Why do you folks wanna go up there, anyway?" he asked. "Sure you don't wanna check out South Mountain instead? They've added some nice extensions to the Turner's Gap battlefield over the past few months..."

"No, we're going up there for...a specific purpose," Ford said, dancing around the real reason for their request.

"We're looking for a monster," Pauline admitted. Ford scowled at her, fearing their host's response.

Stett laughed. "Oh, the Snallygaster! Man, I hadn't heard anything about that critter since my teen years. Heard about it all the time growing up around here. Until lately, that is. Now  _everybody_ 's seeing the damn thing. You think it might live up on Mt. Chawkaway?"

"We have it on...let's say an educated guess that it might be using the old mine up there as a nesting ground or a hiding place." Ford shrugged, feigning skepticism for the young man's benefit. "Of course, I'm sure it's just an old folktale, but..."

"If you think it's a folktale, why are you so keen to get up there?" Stett asked.

"Thoroughness of research," Ford said.

"Call it a hunch," Pauline snapped.

"I'm preparing an article on Maryland folklore, and the Snallygaster's a big part of it," Ford lied. "Think about it. Of course, I'm not expecting anything to actually be there. But wouldn't it be a gas if we somehow, while researching an article on old wives' tales, that we find out that they were true?"

"Sure would be," Stett agreed. "Well, I'll drive you folks up the mountain so we can take a look around."

"Thank you," Ford said. "Would you like any payment for your time."

The young man waved away his offer. "Tell you what. If we find a Snallygaster, this one's on me. I've always wanted to see a real monster in the flesh."

Ford turned to Pauline. "Are you sure you're ready?"

"Ready as I'm gonna be," Pauline said. She discreetly felt for the gun hidden under her arm, making sure it was there. "Don't tell me you're having second thoughts."

"Not at all," Ford said. "Only...we really should wait for Chet."

"I'm tired of waiting, Ford," Pauline said. "Don't know when, or if he's even gonna be back. And we don't want the thing to appear or strike again before we get a chance to check it out. Let's go, hillbilly or no-billy."

Ford nodded grimly and started back towards their car. As they prepared to get in, Stett gestured to them from outside his garage.

"Hey guys, I have a Jeep," he called. "It's four wheel drive and will help us get up the mountain easier. Plus, maybe it's easier if I drive."

Ford looked to Pauline and shrugged. Before they could react, Stett got into the Jeep and started the engine.

"This all seems a bit too convenient," Pauline warned.

"True, but I notice we're doing it any way," Ford said. "What do we have to lose?"

"Our lives?" Pauline reminded him. "Aren't you the one who never trusts anyone?"

Ford shrugged. "Generally, yes. But I don't suspect a massive conspiracy to cover up monsters like this. If it were UFOs, or some kind of hidden files or documents that we were investigating, I'd definitely have my guard up..."

"Trust No One means  **No One** , Ford," Pauline insisted. And she wore a look of fear and trepidation that made Ford hesitate, just for a moment.

"He's basically a poor man's park ranger," Ford reminded her as the Jeep pulled up beside them. Though he seemed more interested in convincing himself just now. "And besides, you were the one who wanted to go ahead without Chet."

"I meant by ourselves," Pauline said, catching a glimpse of Stett's smiling face through the window.

Ford opened the door to the Jeep's backseat.

"Always the gentleman, huh Ford?" Pauline smiled before entering the car with exaggerated hesitation. "Glad to know you're willing to let me get my brains blown out first."

Ford looked around outside, as if sensing some danger, before climbing in to the seat beside her.

He hoped to God she was wrong. And if she was right, well, it serves him right at least. Maybe not her.

But then, why would someone want to cover up a Snallygaster, of all things? Even for a chronic paranoid like him, it didn't make sense. And Stett seemed perfectly harmless.

Didn't he?

At least he had his magnet gun in case something went wrong. 

Somewhere in the distance, just before he closed the door, Ford heard an animal scream.


	4. Chapter 4

Ford's mind wandered as they drove up the hill. Mostly because Mr. Stett blathered like the tour guide he probably was, discussing Mt. Chawkaway's minimally interesting history...a place of Indian encampments and colonial travels, a minor Civil War skirmish which left six men wounded and impacted nothing, and one of the first copper mines opened in Maryland. Only the last seemed to be especially relevant.

He tried focusing on the task at hand. He _knew_  that the Snallygaster was real, even if he hadn't seen it himself. He wasn't particularly afraid or concerned, not after the creatures he'd discovered and monsters he'd battled over the years. Certainly not after half a lifetime traveling across the Multiverse.

He did wonder, nonetheless, what they might do with a creature that could apparently kill or immobilize its prey with a single, bloodcurdling scream. He wished that he'd brought some kind of earmuffs or noise-cancellation device; all he had was some portable technical equipment, including a camera, a notepad and his magnet gun, whose effectiveness would be limited against anything as large as the Snallygaster. He might get one shot at full power before the creature attacked...he hoped that his aim would be true today. He wished McGucket were with him; he'd usually bring along some handy device to capturing a critter this size.

And naturally, despite himself, he thought about Pauline, who fidgeted in her seat like an impatient kid, her face lined with fear and twitching with agitation...for the first time, Ford thought, she really  _looked_  her age.

Ford couldn't read people terribly well, but the past few days gave him much to think about. He couldn't help wondering...why this friend from the past? Why  **now**? Why over something as random or trivial as a Snallygaster? He couldn't figure it out, and her explanation -  _"I thought it might be fun"_  - seemed childish and inappropriate, a poor cover story for something far more serious.

Something else was going here, but he couldn't figure out what. And he was afraid to ask.

He found it very hard to trust people - family, friends, colleagues, complete strangers, gnomes, triangle demons. Too much experience being tricked, betrayed or let down over his lifetime. He even found their  _driver_  suspicious, for God's sake, on the basis of a dimly familiar profile. This harmless guy who thought listing all the mining companies who tried their hand at digging for copper in central Maryland became, in Ford's mind, the locus of a dread conspiracy led by God-knows-who to affect Lord-knows-what.

**Trust no one.**

Or so he'd always told himself. And for most of his life, it had been pretty solid advice.

But now, Ford  _wanted_  to trust Pauline. Badly. He remembered their time together vividly, like their fights and their break-up and the intervening decades hadn't happened at all. Their relationship hadn't always been easy or fulfilling, but it was one of the few real human connections he'd formed over the years. One of the few times he'd ever really loved someone, aside from his brother...and look how **that**  turned out. Look how hard  _that_  was to fix.

It only took the end of the world before he and Stan were on speaking terms again. And even now, there were still many kinks to work out, that no number of Apocalypses could resolve. He hoped it wouldn't come to that with Pauline.

If only he could figure out what was wrong...what was going on in Pauline's head. What problem she was  _really_  facing. Maybe he couldn't help, but he could at least try. At least he could offer comfort and understanding. He could be a friend.

But he was afraid to ask. And so he remained silent. Hoping that, once they resolved this matter of the Snallygaster, he could discover some information on his own. Do an investigation into his old friend and see what he could find. To locate truth and answers without incurring any pain or unnecessary confrontation.

It seemed so much easier, just then, than talking to her.

* * *

Even when she was awake, Pauline thought about it.

Being taken by space aliens made you a punchline for life. Made you fodder for jokes and eye-rolls and mutters about your sanity. Lifelong fodder for therapists and psychiatrists, hypnosis and pills, occasionally even commitment. And always questioning, forced to wonder constantly about the reality of what happened, whether it was real or whether you were really insane and somehow making up a nightmare that you lived again and again and again.

If people say something often enough, you start to believe it. Yet Pauline never really doubted her experience.

She'd been all of nine years old when it first happened. February 9th, 1968.

She remembered sitting in her snug little home in Palatine, the weird blue-yellow wallpaper patterns that struck her as ugly even then, the room dimly lit by a television and an undersized lamp. Her parents - both oversized and lumpen, perpetually sullen in expression, looking like caricatures of the All-American Family - hogged the overstuffed couch to themselves after a long day working at their bar. She sat on the floor in front of them, numbly watching the TV.

The news showed the usual litany of horrors. More fighting in Vietnam - the Tet Offensive raged on, American soldiers pinned down by Commies at a far-off place called Khe Sanh. Another police shooting of blacks in the Deep South, at a town called Orangeburg. Another speech by Martin Luther King, more blather about the upcoming presidential campaign which she was too young to understand or care about. A plane crash in India; a Hollywood actor dying of an overdose; the Beatles traveling to meet the Maharishi. Closer to home, a shooting in Chicago and arguments over school busing, hockey highlights and weather forecasts and threats of a transit strike.

Those images, almost ubiquitous, even banal in that dread year, were the last memory she had of that evening. She next remembered waking up suddenly in bed around five in the morning. She wondered if she'd fallen asleep and her parents took her to bed. But paid no notice of it for awhile.

Until a few weeks later, when the nightmares began.

They were always the same, coming in snippets and visions rather than a coherent memory. Laying on a bed or table, unable to move. Dim, shadowy figures bathed in harsh white light. Poking and prodding her in her most vulnerable places.

Unable to move. Unable to think, except about the horror that enveloped her.

She would wake up in the middle of the night, screaming and sweating. Her mom and dad would try to comfort her at first, insisting it was just a dream, that nothing bad had happened or would happen to her. (Her parents, whatever their other faults, treated her with affection, almost to the point of smothering her.) And she could believe that - at first.

But the dreams continued, for months. Her parents grew tired of comforting her, grew exasperated by her endless screams in the night, told her to suck it up and stop screaming. That didn't help.

She started seeing a counselor, who couldn't put his finger on the dreams. There weren't any obvious changes in her life - her parents ran a small bar in Palatine, she had many friends at school, decent grades. The only thing Pauline could think of was the family dog, who had been hit by a car and died the previous fall.

Somehow the counselor, a callow young man with a beatnik beard and a look of perpetual boredom, connected the two. He blamed her nightmares on the dog's passing, somehow, and gave her a stiff, unconvincing lecture about dealing with loss.

 _You'll get over it,_  he assured her with an insincere, plastered-on smile. _It takes time to get back to normal, especially with a pet. But trust me - everything will be fine after awhile._

Somehow, that phony little bromide seemed to work. Because Pauline stopped having her dreams, at least for awhile. And she lived the life of many kids trying desperately to make sense of a world gone mad, as America descended into chaos and her parents constantly argued and shouted at each other over events they didn't understand much better than their kid.

And so it was, until January 19th, 1969. The day before Richard Nixon took office, with America waking from one nightmare into a new one.

And that day, whether coincidentally or not, it happened again. Just like last time - missing time, followed by nightmare.

And she knew, even at age ten, that whatever had happened, she'd never escape it.

* * *

They reached the top of the mountain, finding it remarkably barren, as Stett had warned them. It looked almost desert-like, the area scoured over by mining, with only a few stubborn trees sprouting through the worked-over ground. A bird flew overhead, but didn't dare to land.

"This is the mine, over here," Stett said, gesturing to a modest-little wooden building, with dark paint faded to an ugly red-gray color. "Built this as a front, I guess, to give the miners some shelter or to try and make things work better. There used to be a whole complex here, but most of the buildings fell apart or rotted away over the years. Somehow this has still survived."

"Are we able to go inside?" Ford asked.

Stett shrugged. "I can take you in the building, if that's what you mean. Show you what everything looked like, maybe give you a little spiel about how the mine works."

"Any chance we can go in the mine itself?" Ford pressed. Stett's baffled look provided its own answer.

"Umm...the mine closed in 1933," the guide said. "Pretty sure it wouldn't be safe to venture in there. Wouldn't even know if it were possible, to be honest..."

As Ford listened to his explanation, he felt his phone buzz. Pauline noticed too, and asked Stett some boilerplate question to distract him as Ford answered it. Ford's eyes widened in terror as he scanned the message.

**SNALLYGASTER COMING YOUR WAY.**

**SO AM I.**

**CHET.**

And he buried the phone in his pocket, gesturing to Pauline, who gamely pretended to be so interested in whatever technical nonsense Stett was droning on about that she barely noticed.

"Hey, uh, Martin is it?" Ford asked, gesturing more frantically at Pauline. "Can we have a moment? We were hoping to check out the mine down here, but if it's not closed, we don't want to waste any more of your time..."

"Hey, no harm in asking," Stett assured him. "I mean, you folks came all this way, you might as well get a show and a story while you're up here."

Ford showed Pauline the message; she gasped and clamped her hand over her mouth in shock.

"We're gonna get a show alright," Ford muttered, feeling for his magnet gun with his free hand.

"Where do you think it lives?" Pauline asked. "If the mine's inside that building, I doubt it can fit in there."

"Maybe there's an alternate entrance," Ford mused. "Sometimes these mines had an emergency shaft of some kind installed. Or maybe...maybe it doesn't live in the mine at all."

"Well, then we'd be back at square one with Martin and a crazy dragon thing headed our way."

"Not much more we can do except wait and see where things go from here," Ford said. "Wait it out. Try and stay close. If it heads this way, we'll see it, even if it doesn't come to this specific location."

Pauline nodded grimly. "Either way, we should probably take a look around the mine. I mean, might as well. If it's a nest or a home or even a temporary residence, I'm sure there's a lot to take in down there."

Ford nodded. "The trouble will be getting inside," he said. "If it's really closed up like he says..."

"I wouldn't think you'd let something like  **that**  stop you," she teased. "I'm sure you have ways of making it open."

They turned back to Stett, smiled and waved to reassure him everything was alright. Then Pauline stepped closer to Ford, grabbing his shoulder.

"What are we gonna do with him?" she whispered in his ear.

"You don't trust him?" Ford wondered.

"Not as far as I can throw him," Pauline affirmed.

Ford smiled. "That makes two of us."

Though  **why**  they couldn't trust him...Ford still couldn't quite figure out. All he knew was that  _something_  was going on...perhaps something bigger than a mere mythic creature.

Just a feeling.

* * *

The brown-haired man drove up the mountain in a black late-model Kia. He carried a Glock with him, but didn't expect any serious trouble. He figured he was dealing with an older, eccentric scientist and a middle-aged woman who shouldn't be too hard to scare.

**"Send him a message."**

That vague instruction gave him a lot of latitude, which he appreciated. Mostly, it implied that he should avoid bloodshed if at all possible. A "message" signified intimidation rather than termination. Though, being him, he'd try for a polite but firm warning, like a banker collecting a debt, before escalating into anything absurd.

He had been watching Pauline Dietrich for some time - almost a year, by his reckoning. She had found something - he had no clue what - that piqued her interest, that compelled her to start piecing things together that hinted at a bigger picture. But only hinted...it was enough to stop things in their tracks with a little careful monitoring, a little pressure. And enough precautions had been taken to allow them to hide their project from the public.

He hadn't met her face-to-face just yet. Unless brushing past her in a hotel lobby in St. Louis, or smiling by sunglasses outside a library in Tulsa, or ducking into a phone booth in Kirkland, Washington while she and her friend walked past counted.

As for Stanford Pines, he knew very little.

He knew a little about  _Stan_  Pines, who had a reputation as a shyster and a troublemaker. He had read about the Mystery Shack, which he didn't think much about; he knew that its proprietor had a checkered past that could be used for blackmail purposes, if it came to that.

On the other hand...Stan Pines was also supposed to be a brilliant scientist who did research into astrophysics and anomalous phenomena, then unaccountably gave it up in order to run a tourist trap in rural Oregon. Were they the same person? Or was this merely another stolen identity among many? He dimly remembered some mention of a brother, who'd apparently died decades ago.

He couldn't puzzle out the discrepancy, how one man could become the other. Though frankly, he didn't care  _that_  much aside from curiosity. It didn't effect his mission either way...Stan Pines, he thought, was here in front of him.

And Pines and Pauline had evidently stumbled across more incriminating details over the past few days. Whether in tandem or individually, it spelled trouble for the Project, the effort by concerned men and women to rewrite history wholesale and use it to change the present - and, if possible, to control the future.

And now, under the cover of investigating some silly redneck superstition, they'd discovered one of the Project's main bases. You can hide a lot in an old copper mine; it was only a question of keeping it hidden. Sure, they  _talked_  about finding the Snallygaster, but the man wasn't stupid enough to think that was the real reason they were there.

it made his job easier. He wouldn't have to track them down. And maybe, it would be that much easier to impress the importance of desisting upon them.

And if not, he mused as he spotted the tour guide's truck coming up over the hill, with three figures standing beside it...

Well, a mine would be a safe, quiet place to bury them.


	5. Chapter 5

The inside of the museum looked like it hadn't been visited in months. Years, even. Ford noted that the wood and stone were stained with soot and rainwater, as if the mine had never been closed at all. Parts of the paint and wallpaper were visibly peeling off. The whole building felt and smelled like a crypt.

There were some small, uninspired exhibits about mining practices and the history of the mountain which Mr. Stett. But the farther along he got, the more agitated he seemed to become, his banal, blathering excitement giving way to visible trepidation.

And Ford felt his paranoia sense tingling again.

Something here didn't seem right.  _Many_  things here didn't seem right.

Like, if this place was meant for tourists, if they could get a man to volunteer as their guide...why on Earth did it look like no one had been here for months? Years, even?

And it wasn't only that. Wasn't even only the tour guide that raised his hackles. He noticed Pauline getting more tense and fidgety, too. One of her hands kept making a strange gesture, opening and closing by her side, as if grasping at air or something invisible beside her.

He remembered that gesture from decades before, when they were dating. And it never happened in a good context.

Whenever Pauline was about to have one of her nightmares. Whenever he asked her too much about her experiences and she was clearly uncomfortable answering questions. Whenever they were about to have an argument.

Almost like a premonition, or else a remembrance of terrors past and horrors to come.

And it was happening  _now_.

It was happening when Ford was already concerned, suspicious, unsure what to expect. Happening when there's a suspicious man leading them around and a mythical, possibly dangerous dragon beast somewhere in the general vicinity.

After several minutes of aimless, marginally interesting information, Stett led his guests towards a closed mine shaft in the middle of the building.

"And here, finally, is the entrance to the mine," Stett said, adopting his usual bland tone to hide his agitation. "They decided due to safety concerns to try and use a ventilated elevator shaft."

"Any way we can get down there?" Ford asked.

"The mine closed in, I think 1937?" Stett continued his spiel as if he hadn't been interrupted. "There wasn't nearly as much copper in the mountain as the miner owners thought when they started. Barely enough for 15 years of operation. Eventually they ran out as if..."

"Does the shaft still work?" Ford tried again.

"Not that I'm aware of," Stett replied in a lawyerly tone of voice. Which wasn't good enough for Ford.

"Has it been tried?" Ford said.

"Not by me."

"That's not really an answer," Pauline said, moving towards the shaft's opening. Stett suddenly stepped in front of her, blocking her path.

"It's too dangerous," Stett said. "We don't want you falling down an abandoned mine shaft..."

"That's a risk I'm willing to take," she said, roughly putting a hand on his shoulder. Stett visibly flinched. Ford stood back, staring at the tour guide, and checked for his magnet gun as discreetly as he could.

"You aren't going down there, ma'am," Stett said, pushing Pauline back. Ford instinctively stepped forward.

"You get your hands off me, punk," Pauline shouted. But Stett stood up ramrod straight, blocking her.

"How do you know it's dangerous if you haven't been down there?" Ford asked.

"It's a sealed off old mine," Stett reasoned. "You do the math."

Ford stepped back and sighed. Pauline looked about ready to  _murder_  Stett, who seemed unsure what to do, torn between wanting to fight and wanting to reveal the truth.

 _He's hiding something,_  Ford thought, sizing up the scared young man with his eyes.  _That's obvious now, if it wasn't before. Still, better to reason with him than to fight. Or at least to try._

 _If he was truly dangerous, he would have killed us already._ The thought didn't exactly help Ford feel relieved, but it did make him hopeful that he could talk without resorting to violence.

Though he had to act soon. Because if he wasn't eager to fight, Pauline clearly was.

* * *

"All right," Ford barked. "Let's all step back and take a breath. To avoid any further misunderstandings, I'll lay all of our cards on the table."

"Ford, maybe that's not the  _greatest_  idea," Pauline warned, eyes still on Stett. But Ford ignored her.

"My name is Dr. Stanford Pines, and I'm a scientist," he told the young man, speaking firmly but evenly as if lecturing a student. "We're investigating reports of the Snallygaster and we have reasons to believe that it nests on this mountain, perhaps in this very mine. Now, I understand that you're concerned about the mine being dangerous, but I assure you that it is essential that we descend into the mine and examine it for traces of this creature. We will not hold you liable for any danger that may befall us. Neither myself nor Pauline here has any interest in legal action against you. We merely want to find the truth."

Instead of feeling reassured, Stett defiantly crossed his arms.

"The truth? Okay. Let's cut the bullshit, huh? I know why you want down there and it has nothing to do with a stupid hillbilly legend."

This took Ford by surprise. He shot Pauline a glance; she was still staring anxiously at the young guide, her hands still fidgeting anxiously.

"You're after the files down in the mine," the young man continued. "You're with those Jacobin creeps, right?"

"Jacobin creeps?" Ford puzzled this, knowing the term's historical meaning but not its relevance here. "Christ, man, are you going to call me a  _sans-culotte_  next? Make some sense."

"Don't play dumb, Doctor," Stett said. "You  _know_  who and what I mean. They're the ones who've been going into the mine over the past few months to stockpile forged documents and records for...God, I don't know  **why**  they're doing it. It doesn't make any sense to me. I'm sure you creeps have your reasons, though. You don't just take over an abandoned mine and..."

"Hold up, hold up," Ford said. "Forged...documents? I don't..."

And then he understood. Or at least  _some_  of it.

He turned to his colleague. "Pauline...Do you know what he's talking about?"

Pauline turned, shocked by the accusation. She quickly averted her gaze, but Ford caught enough of the guilty, surprised glimmer in his eye to realize the answer.

"So...this isn't about the Snallygaster at all...is it?" Ford challenged her. No response. So he sighed, licked his lips, and uttered the four most painful words he knew:

_"You lied to me."_

Pauline nodded shamefully, still looking at the ground. A long, awkward pause between the three of them, as the words sunk in. The silence allowed Ford to run through worst-case scenarios in his mind.

"So you tricked me here to help you...?" he said, balling his hands into fists. Wondering, if Pauline hid this from him (and why, he didn't know, though he could guess; didn't she trust him? If not, why not?), what else was he hiding.

"That's not what I'm doing," Pauline muttered sadly, refusing to face him. "I didn't..."

"I've been tricked before, Pauline," he said, now sounding more disappointed than angry. "Evil men...evil  **creatures**...have gained and betrayed my confidence. Tricked me into doing horrible, awful things that I never would have done if I didn't make the mistake of trusting them. Hurt my family, hurt my friends, hurt everyone I cared about, and plenty of other people and entities besides."

And Pauline's mouth dropped open.

"Ford...I didn't..." She didn't know what to say in response to that accusation. She felt Ford's stare, could feel his hot, angry judgment burning through her skin. And she couldn't form the words.

Not an explanation. Not an apology. Nothing came. Nothing seemed appropriate.

"I hate to interrupt this lover's quarrel," Stett said, smiling wryly and seeming to relish their reaction. "Maybe we should all start over."

* * *

Chet Wilcox was stuck in traffic, again, and was growing frustrated. Things were moving too slow for him to catch up. He hadn't seen the Snallygaster since it had flown over his car, and he was just guessing that he knew where the damn thing was going.

At least as he waited in traffic, he had a chance to think about what had happened to him. About the scream. About its deafening impact, and how he somehow managed to overcome it.

He remembered reading stories about the Snallygaster, like everyone else. And how witnesses always remarked on it scream. As if the flying bird-dragon wasn't scary so much as the  _sound_  it made.

It wasn't just that it was  _loud_. It was that it somehow penetrated into his head, taking up residence in his eardrums. His initial thought was that the animal might use its cry as a way to somehow kill or weaken or mesmerize his prey. That would be the scientific explanation, the one Ford Pines would like.

But there was something supernatural about the way it seemed to operate. How it could appear or disappear at will, how its scream only seemed to affect him, as if it was directed to him personally. Like he was a target.

And yet he'd been able to beat it by playing music loud. Just loud enough to drown out the evil sound clouding his thoughts and destroying his ears and brain.

At least he knew there was a way to fight back, should it prove necessary. Though now, as he drove down the highway, stuck in traffic, the mountains a distant smudge on the horizon, he wondered if it would be.

Finally, just when he'd given up hope, Chet looked into the sky and saw something on the horizon.

A large blur of a creature, flying high among the clouds, silhouetted against the Sun. But there was no mistaking. No other bird in this part of the world would be anywhere near as big. And no plane would fly so slow.

The Snallygaster.

And yes, his hunch had been right. It was leading him northwest, straight to Mt. Chawkaway.

Spotting an opening, he slammed his gas on the accelerator and turned hard on the wheel of his truck, swerving off-road, ignoring the honks. Hoping that he could keep pace with the Snallygaster before it disappeared.

Hoping that Ford had received his message.

* * *

"My real name is Blake Pickering of the Archival Recovery Program," Mr. Stett said, showing an identification badge. "Since the FBI is a bit  _busy_  these days, the Inspector General of NARA put me in charge of looking into this project."

"Does this matter fall under your agency's purview?" Ford asked. "I thought Treasury investigated forgeries."

" _Treasury_  forgeries," Stett - or Pickering - corrected him. "Bank notes and checks and counterfeits and so forth. We're in charge of recovering lost or stolen artifacts and documents from government archives. And brother, we have a mother lode here."

Pickering put his badge away and relaxed, just a bit. Ford smiled slightly, having apparently earned the agent's trust. Though he still refused to acknowledge Pauline, who paced around anxiously in the background as the men talked.

"The only way to make convincing forgeries is to make them resemble the real deal," Pickering said. "Most people will try sneaking into an NARA site or museum and copy or forge them. Those end up being really crude, really easy to spot, nine times out of ten. Remember the MJ-12 documents back in the Nineties? Turns out someone just hacked up a bunch of government documents, stitched them together, added references to space aliens and slapped Harry Truman's signature on it. And Nixon did the same thing back in the '70s when he had Howard Hunt doctor cables to 'prove' Kennedy ordered the murder of Ngo Dinh Diem in Vietnam.

"That sort of thing...it's almost an insult. Sure, maybe the lay man or the hack journalist or the conspiracy theorist will fall for it, because they can't see the forgery. But  _we_  can. That's amateur hour stuff. And the perpetrators usually wind up caught or exposed before too long."

"So, instead of copying documents..."

"They  _steal_  them. And replicate them. And make whatever changes. Over the past two years, we've noticed a large amount of documents disappearing from different museums and archives. Dozens of them, from all over the country. Sometimes, they make an effort to cover their tracks. Leave some kind of copy or placeholder. It's not hard to spot, but it throws us off the scent long enough for them to smuggle them into hiding."

"And what, exactly, are they doing with them?" Ford wondered. "There must be a purpose to all this. Quite a lot of effort going into it."

"We're not quite sure," Pickering admitted. "But we can guess something of it from what they've been stealing. Mostly documents from the colonial era and early American history, up to about 1850 or so."

Ford scratched his head at this. "Early American history? Perhaps, if they're creating forgeries and hiding the original documents, they're trying to rewrite the past."

Pickering nodded. "That's what I'm guessing."

"But to what end?" Ford wondered.

"What's the quote from Orwell? Whoever controls the past...erm, something, something. I'm blanking on it right this moment. But you get the gist. Whatever they're trying to do, they're going to a lot of effort to do it."

Ford latched on to one detail he hadn't heard mentioned yet.

"And what is the significance of the Jacobin name you mentioned? That might offer a clue."

"Beats me. Maybe it has none. Sometimes code names are just random phrases they borrow from books or movie or history or random brain farts without thinking them through."

"It's a phrase with specific meaning though," Ford insisted. "I'm sure you know about the French Revolution connection. It was also used by Federalists in the 1790s as a slur against Jefferson and his party, sort of like later generations would use Communists or terrorists as an epithet towards anyone they didn't like. Maybe that offers the key to their motivations."

"You might be right," Pickering said. "That actually  _does_  make sense. Still..." He rubbed his face, puzzling it out. Though Ford guessed that he might still be sizing up his guests, wondering how much he could trust them.

 _Well, **I**  still don't entirely trust you_, Ford thought to himself, watching the young man intently.  _Even if you are a government agent...maybe, especially if you're a government agent. And how can I trust someone I've just met, who's already tricked me, when I can't even trust a woman I've known for thirty-odd years?_

"Pauline," Ford said, "what do you know about this?"

Pauline finally turned towards Ford, her face still showing hurt and remorse.

"A little," she admitted, hesitating for a long moment before deciding to spill the beans.

"Mostly what this guy told you a minute ago, I guess. Except how I came to be involved. I stumbled across the whole thing by accident. I'm still involved with some of those mystery and paranormal groups we worked with back in the day, though I haven't attended a convention in years. Too many bad memories. But I like the people well enough to stay in touch with some of them. Hell, I dated you, didn't I? And I married one of them, although I suppose that didn't work out so well for me.

"Anyway, somebody posted something online on a discussion board. There was an article in, I think it was USA Today about a bunch of archival thefts. I didn't think much about it at the time, until I saw the coverage of Preston Northwest's downfall. And your role in it. And I wondered if there was a connection.

"So I asked around. And one member of one of my UFO groups knew a guy who worked in the State Department archives. Said a whole bunch of files relating to the Adams and Jefferson Administrations had gone missing, and nobody knew who took them or why. Or could even make much sense about what was stolen, and to what end. Just a whole bunch of seemingly random documents, poof! Gone, or stolen. Again, it might have been something that I ignored, except there was a small sliver of interest for me."

"What's that?" Ford asked quietly. Pauline again hesitated before answering. Unnoticed by either of them, Pickering leaned in intently. 

"They mentioned...I won't give you their name, because...it's none of your business. But, I met with somebody I knew through one of those chat rooms. Claimed that he'd found an explosive document through one of his contacts. Something about a secret protocol instituted in around 1800 designed to outlaw assorted religious and ethnic minorities in the United States in perpetuity. I told him that wasn't my area of expertise, that the subject didn't especially interest me - in fact, I figured it was a crank thing when I heard that story, my BS detector is pretty good, and even if it were real, what would it prove? Some people alive two centuries ago were bigots? Big whoop. They owned slaves, they shot Indians, that's not news to me.

"But I wanted to be polite. So I referred him to an historian friend I knew to examine what he had, see if he could authenticate it."

"And then what happened?" Ford asked. And Pauline choked back a sob.

"He was killed. Two days later. They found him dead in his car, apparently gassed to death."

And she broke down crying, the fight taken out of her. Ford came forward and comforted her as best he could, patting her on the shoulder and muttering words of. Pickering leaned forward in sympathy, then retreated as he noticed Ford's polydactylic digits. 

"And that's not even the scary part," Pauline confided. "The historian? He was a guy named Paul Jeffrey, community college professor out in Baltimore, Maryland. Someone broke into his home and shot him three days later. Police said it was a burglary, but...well, I put two and two together. Especially when they mentioned he was writing a book on early American history."

And Ford felt his head start to spin with dread. What was going on?

"I don't know what these people are trying to do," Pauline insisted. "God, believe me I'm not  _working_  with them. But it's pretty obvious...I mean, whatever they're doing...this isn't somebody just messing around or playing a prank. They're willing to _kill_  over this stuff. And it terrified me."

"But why?" Ford still didn't get it, though he was more thinking out loud than asking her. 

"Figured that you were someone who could help me," Pauline said. "I just had to get you on board. And then I saw that there were a bunch of cryptid sightings in this area, and I put two and two together." 

"Why didn't you tell me the truth, then?" Ford asked, a flash of his earlier anger returning. "You know I would have helped you with something like this." 

She shrugged. "It seemed easier," she admitted. "Didn't want you to Plus, I figured the Snallygaster would interest you more." 

Ford grimaced. "You should have known I'm not afraid of any punks," he said proudly. "I'm a Pines! We don't scare easy." Though as he said that, he wished Stan were with them - for the  _punching_. 

He still wasn't sure how much he trusted Pauline - not after she admitted that she'd dragged him across the country under false pretenses. But at the moment, he chose not to press the issue.

Right now, he didn't have much choice. 

 

Then, after another moment of contemplation, they both back turned to Pickering, still standing in front of the mine entrance, still hovering awkwardly, unsure how to handle the inquisitive strangers before him. Ford didn't know if their conversation had changed the answer to the question he'd asked several times already. But now, he felt it was worth trying. 

"Any chance we can get down in the mine?"


	6. Chapter 6

The elevator creaked ominously as it lowered into the mine shaft. There was an old light bulb in the roof, just bright enough for the passenger's to see the rock walls surrounding them as they descended, coursing with old wiring and water trails and pick marks. A heavy odor of wet clay with a faint metallic whiff hung over them.

Ford and Pauline stood on opposite sides of the elevator, facing away from each other. Blake Pickering stood between them, staring ahead at the door, not speaking to either of them.

Ford was still angry at Pauline for deceiving him. But he'd deal with that later. Unless she had some other trick up her sleeve, some other dread secret she was keeping from him.

**Trust no one.**

He should  _really_  learn to take his own advice at this point. Even when it's someone he's known for years. Maybe especially then.

Even leaving aside Pauline's personal deceit (as if  _that_  was easy), their mission had just become much more complicated. He'd come here looking for a monster and stumbled across another conspiracy. Just his luck. He tried looking at it from a pragmatic standpoint, that he could solve  _two_  mysteries at once, but that thought was empty and not very comforting. Right now, he'd rather deal with a deadly flying dragon than another tangle of hidden misdeeds and dread secrets.

Finally, the elevator reached its departure point. Pickering opened the door and led the two investigators into the mine.

It was a wide, long cavern, dark and empty, but otherwise in pretty good shape for something that ostensibly hadn't been used in almost a century. A strange contrast with the building overhead, Ford thought, though it confirmed his suspicions.

"Any lights in here?" Ford asked, looking around.

"Well, the mine's wired with electricity from back in the day," Pickering said. "But I wouldn't bet money that it's plugged in or anything."

"Maybe if there's a circuit breaker or something we could give it a try," Ford mused.

"Possibly. But there's no guarantee it would work even if it existed. I mean, a mine that's been out of commission for decades..."

"But if someone's been down here more recently, surely they would have used some light source while they worked. Maybe a generator or something..."

As the men chattered away, Pauline took out a small penlight and searched along the wall near the elevator. After a few moments of searching, she found an old electrical box with faded red paint. She carefully opened it up and saw, to her surprise, that the circuit board appeared to functional.

And she also noted a strange sticker slapped inside the door:

**PEROT/STOCKDALE '92**

Well,  _that'_ s handy. Because 26 years ago was a hell of a lot less time than a century.

"Maybe we should just use flashlights or something," Ford suggested in the background. "That might be easier than a wild goose chase in the dark."

"You sure you don't mean a wild Snallygaster chase?" Pickering joked.

Pauline pulled the breaker switch, and a hum of electricity passed overhead. After a moment, a string of lights overhead flickered on and off. A few blew out, most were a dim yellow, but it was enough to see down the hall. They illuminated a large cavern with mining equipment strewn about, and several stacks of crates littered along the sides.

"Better than nothing," she said with a shrug. Then she walked in between Ford and Pickering, who were still marveling over her discovery - and wondering where to start looking.

* * *

"I'm telling ya, boy, I saw the Snallygaster headin' this way!" Chet Wilcox protested.

"And I'm telling  **you** ," the Man said, "that there's no such thing as a Snallygaster."

Not that the man really knew, or cared, whether that was true. But he figured, neither did this redneck.

Because really, who would believe that so many people would come to one of the mines, one of Project JACOBIN's largest work sites, would be home to a mythical creature? Even if the Smelly Gasser did exist, it strained credulity too much that it would take up residence  _here_.

Still, this gentleman was here demanding to see a mine with a dragon in it, and it was all the Man could do to keep him from tearing past him.

"My friends are here," Wilcox said. Something which he didn't really know for sure, but guessed (maybe  _hoped_  was a better word). And his guess convinced The Man that his suspicions were right; that there was more to this than a mere monster sighting.

He didn't know much about Ford Pines, other than the smattering of research he'd done over the past few days. Brilliant scientist, sure; involved in the tourist trade out in Oregon, of course. Interesting academic record, a decidedly eccentric field of research. Seemed like an academic, if an unorthodox one, and probably somebody who could be bought or intimidated into silence, or even cooperation.

He  _did_  know Pauline Dietrich pretty well. His group had been bugging and watching her over the past few months, looking into her background, deciding before long that she was a kook and a crank, one of those UFO abductee types who was probably mentally deranged and insane and whom no one would believe, even if she showed up at FBI Headquarters with a truck full of evidence and photographs.

And maybe she was all that. But that worried him, too. Because cranks and kooks were the last people you could tell to stop. Whether or not anyone believed them, once they got onto the scent of something, they weren't going to quit looking unless you put them down or put them onto something else.

Especially someone like Pauline, who had already lost a friend and an acquaintance to the case. That gave extra motivation...and motivated people were even more dangerous than mere kooks.

"This mine is dangerous," the Man lied. "It's been closed to the public for decades due to cave-ins and lack of air."

"Then who all came up here in that damn jeep?" Wilcox demanded, pointing to Pickering's car.

"It's one of the men from the National Park Service," the Man said, scrambling to think of a plausible lie. "Doing an inspection of the site for possible renovation."

"Uh-huh. And what renovations would that be?" Wilcox crossed his arms.

"There used to be a museum in that building there," the Man said evenly. "They're thinking about reopening it, assuming it's in decent shape and tourist interest."

"Then y'all won't mind if I take a peak," Wilcox said, stepping forward.

"No one's allowed in," the Man said, his voice suddenly cold and stern. Wilcox's face twisted into a contemptuous sneer.

"Mister, you don't wanna get into a fight with me," he cautioned, flexing his arms for emphasis. "I'm 245 pounds of corn fed West Virginia sumbitch. Enough of that's muscle that I can flatten you if I wanted to. And the rest of it, I can just fall on top of ya and squish you flat."

This didn't faze the Man at all; if anything, it made him more defiant.

"No one's allowed in," he repeated quietly, his blue-gray eyes flashing coldly. It revealed a soullessness that unnerved Wilcox, just enough to make him hesitate.

Which was long enough. Because the Man saw a shadow cast over them. He craned his head to see, and...

_Holy **shit.**_

Flying over them slowly was a giant...bird? Dragon? Monster?

It must be the Snallygaster!

Indeed, it was.

The Man got a big, long look at it. A huge, ghastly creature, gray-and-brown scales alternating with strange orange-brown feathers, looking like a plucked chicken. But most plucked chickens couldn't fly. Most didn't have huge condor wings with opposable bat claws on the end. Most didn't have razor sharp predator beaks, and...

What was that in its  **face**?

An eye.

One giant, single eye, dominating its whole head.

The site unnerved the Man deeply, enough that he lost his cool for a moment. He felt his bowels clench and thought instantly about running for cover. Then he looked back at Wilcox, watching him on his knees, covering his ears and screaming in agony.

And  _that_  was the strangest thing about this scenario. The Snallygaster wasn't making any kind of noise that the Man could hear. It was flying overhead, practically hovering, circling like the world's biggest, ugliest vulture. Silent aside from the flap of its wings, the wind rushing against its body, the occasional snort or growl emanating from its beak.

And yet Wilcox writhed on the ground, screaming, as if having a seizure. As if the creature was somehow  _attacking_  him.

This was enough for The Man. He instinctively ran for cover, trying to make it to the Museum, mixing personal safety with his mission. He looked over his shoulder, noticing that the creature was...not chasing him. In fact, it didn't seem to notice him at all.

Instead it remained where it was, watching Wilcox writhe on the ground in agony, until after a long moment the screams stopped and his body lay flat against the ground. Then the creature let out a triumphant cry and swooped down towards the ground.

The Man didn't look to see what happened next. Instead, he ducked into the doorway and pulled out his pistol, instinctively cocking it. Though he did wonder how on Earth a handgun could do any good against a monster that size.

He waited a long moment, then heard the creature take off, with a few grunts and screams, and fly away. He waited until it seemed out of earshot, then breathed a sigh of relief.

Once he was sure he was safe, the Man remembered his mission. And started towards the mine shaft.

* * *

"This is incredible," Ford marveled as he and Pickering unloaded sheaths of papers from one of the crates.

There was a small wooden table set up in the middle of the mine, apparently by whoever had stolen or forged the documents. And a little desk lamp, which didn't provide any noticeable light. Otherwise, just crates - dozens of them. And God knows how many documents - and what was  **in**  the documents, besides!

"It must have taken them  _years_  to steal all of these," Pickering said as he opened a manila envelope, spilling a large type-written document onto the table. "Maybe even decades. Can you  _imagine_  all the effort, all the manpower that would have to go into a project like this? How many museums and archives and collections and libraries would have to be raided and plundered for a collection like this to be  **possible**?"

"All that, and we still don't know to what purpose," Ford murmured, examining the documents and gesturing for Pickering to stand beside him.

They examined the documents from the envelope first. Ford looked over them and saw that they appeared to be typewritten copies of old diplomatic cables and government documents.

"How can we sort the real documents from the forgeries?" Ford said. "These are all reproductions! There weren't any typewriters until 1868, let alone computers, and all these documents appear much older than that."

"Guess we'll have to go through them one by one and see," Pickering said with a heavy sigh, looking at the mountain of papers they'd already piled on the desk.

The first document was banal enough - correspondence about the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842, which resolved an American-Canadian border dispute near Maine. Of academic interest but not especially fascinating, and these documents didn't show anything especially odd or enlightening.

It didn't take long before they found something that caught their attention.

"1824," Ford read. "Secret memorandum from Secretary of State John Quincy Adams to...several diplomats in different countries. Makes reference to something called the Franklin Protocol..." Ford racked his brain to see if that sounded familiar. Nothing came.

"Anyway...Look at this. Calls for immediate suspension of 1824 presidential election. Which, I believe, was the year of the corrupt bargain."

"That's right," Pickering agreed. "Four people ran for president and they deadlocked. Adams won the President by promising Henry Clay a cabinet post. Andrew Jackson, who won the popular and the electoral vote, was frozen out by this."

"So, this could be evidence of the corrupt bargain," Ford said.

"It's a bit stranger than that," Pickering said. "Again, call for the suspension of elections. As in, the elections wouldn't happen at all. That Adams, grouchy, entitled old bastard that he was, was basically authorizing a coup d'etat."

Ford looked puzzled. "Why...why would someone fake this? What would it prove? Surely this is too esoteric a thing to mess around with."

Pickering shrugged. "I can't make heads or tails of this by itself. I'd need to see the original document before I believed it."

Ford nodded. "Right. This is something typewritten. It could be an imaginative forgery, but I still don't know what purpose it would serve. It's not like people have great illusions about John Quincy Adams that something like this would dispel."

"No...unless it's part of something bigger." Pickering left that thought hanging there for a moment. "Maybe, once we look at the other documents, see enough separate files...patterns will start to emerge."

Ford nodded, then examined the paper closely. Typed in small, barely visible font in the lower right corner, were two small lines of text:

**ORIGINAL DOCUMENT: Site 14 - VERGNIAUD**

**ORIGINAL RE-PRO: Site 12 - CONDORCET**

Site 12? Site 14? And names of French Revolutionaries - what did this  _mean_?

"Well, these connect with Jacobin, at least," Ford said. "But - Site 12 - Site 14? What, and where are those? And what do these names signify?"

"Beats the shit out of me," Pickering admitted. "Only now we know that this is only a small part of the story."

Ford looked over at the NARA investigator, his face creased with worry and his voice freighted with dread, and pronounced:

"We've either stumbled upon a secret history of the United States bigger and better hidden than we could have ever imagined...or the most colossal fraud of all time."

"Based on what I've seen," Pickering said, "I'm guessing fraud." Though his eyes and tone of voice betrayed uncertainty.

And the two of them remained in place, absorbing the significance of all this. Wondering if they'd stumbled across something bigger, and stranger, than either of them could have expected.

* * *

Pauline wished she could have enjoyed their discovery. After all,  _she_  had been the one investigating this. She had been the one who dragged Ford across the country on a wild critter chase. She had been the one who had seen two people killed as a result of her accidental interest in a random story.

But she couldn't. She was still feeling terrible about what had happened with Ford. Still knowing that she had lied to him, all for something that he probably would have wanted to help with, anyway.

Why did she lie? That's what she kept coming back to. She had no moral qualms about not telling the truth - considering her history, she had to lie often to maintain some semblance of normalcy and sanity - but this seemed different. Because it was a friend, a loved one even.

And maybe that was  **why**  she lied. She wanted to shield him from any unintended consequences - didn't want him to die or be imperiled before he even had a chance to investigate anything. Once they were here, he could find out firsthand and they could plan everything from there. And it wouldn't matter as much, if at all, once Ford had "discovered" the files and was on board with everything.

 _But,_ she told herself, _I should have **known**  better._ She should have known that things wouldn't work out as planned. She should have remembered that even before his disappearance, Ford had a hard time trusting  **anyone** , even Pauline herself when they were dating.

And now he probably wouldn't trust her ever again. Even though there was so much work to do, he wouldn't trust her with any of this.

And she couldn't blame him.

So she remained off to the side, absently walking along the crates as if browsing shelves at a library, swimming in regret and self-loathing, while the men mused over their findings.

"We're gonna need a lot of help with this project," Pickering said. "People who know what they're doing, but people who are discreet, can keep a secret, can work off the grid. I have a few colleagues who could help us, maybe a few archivists, but..." And his voice trailed off at the enormity

"I know some people who can help," Ford said proudly. He thought instantly of his nephew and niece and all of their friends back in Gravity Falls. He thought of his brother - and he wondered - no, he  _knew_  - that what Stan was investigating somehow tied into this. And Lord knows Stan had made quite a few interesting contacts over the years...

His mind started swimming with excitement at the size and scope of the project, the possibilities and the dangers that it entailed. So much so that the Snallygaster was the farthest thing from his mind.

Nor were they expecting the visitor who crept through the shadows. Pauline saw him first, a tall man she recognized immediately and gasped audibly. After a moment, Ford and Pickering looked up from their work and froze in terror.

It wasn't the man's appearance, familiar but nondescript, that caught their attention. Nor that he was wearing an elegant suit in a mine. Nor even his blue-gray eyes, creepily illuminated in the dim lighting.

No, it was something much simpler than that.

It was the gun in his hand.


	7. Chapter 7

"Stanford Pines," the Man said, approaching the trio with his gun in hand. "It's nice to finally meet you."

"Finally meet me?" Ford demanded, curious and confused. "I don't believe I've had the pleasure of..."

"Well, I'll admit that I don't know you as well as I should," the Man continued. "Just a smattering of research, here and there. Your paper on the Unified Weirdness Theory was a bit beyond my capacities as a non-physicist, I must admit, though it sounded a bit ridiculous to the other experts I showed it to. Regardless, it's clear you have an interesting reputation. Sad we have to meet under these circumstances."

"Why would you research me?" Ford demanded, bristling with anger.

"Ask your friend there," he said, gesturing to Pauline with his gun.

Ford looked at Pauline, his face filled with anger. She forlornly shook her head, desperate for him to believe her, but sure he wouldn't.

"Ford, I didn't..." she started to explain, clenched with panic. She stumbled over her words, before blurting out: "I don't even know who he is!"

"She's telling the truth," the Man said, though he clearly relished her discomfort and Ford's simmering rage. "But we know who she is. Ever since she started looking into this subject she's been on our radar. We've been watching her every minute of every day. And listening. Who did you think was sending you all those messages, sweetie?"

Ford looked at Pauline, his anger towards her dissipating. The words made him flush instead with defiance.

"So naturally, we knew, more or less, where to find you," the Man continued. "And now I'm afraid I'll have to, at the very least, ask you to desist."

"To what end?" Ford asked. "What's so damned important about these old files? Why do you want to forge or rewrite information about John Quincy Adams and the Arostook War?"

"You're the genius, Professor," the Man said with a smirk. "I'm sure you and your friends could figure it out. I'm not going to deliver a big revelatory speech on our plans - you'll have to figure them out on your own. Assuming, of course, you walk out of this mine alive..."

As he said those words, they heard a strange, indiscernible noise...what sounded like a scream from somewhere down the mine shaft. Ford looked up, trying to focus his ears on the sound, to see if he could pinpoint its origin or location.

Could it be the structure of the mine settling? Something with the electrical system? Water pipes overhead? Were their pipes on this mountain? Did the elevator get stuck or go back up on its own? (Unless there was another visitor coming to join them, in which case, what then?)

Then it occurred to him. Maybe it's...

No, it couldn't be. Not now.

"Now, believe it or not, I'm a reasonable fella," the Man continued, ignoring Ford's distress. "I'll give you a chance. You three can walk out of here so long as you pretend you've never seen anything. I don't want to kill anyone for no reason. Heck, maybe I can convince my bosses to pay you for the trouble of your silence."

"You're not gonna bribe me," Pickering said, though his raised hands trembled. "No amount of money in the world..."

"Ahh, there  _are_  still Boy Scouts in Washington these days," the Man interrupted, laughing. "Regular Eliot Ness here, saving the world one reel of microfilm at a time. Well, I can appreciate a man of principle. You two, on the other hand, might want to consider whether your life is worth some old files."

"What makes you think we're gonna trust you?" Pauline said. She edged over to the right, casting part of her in the shadows. "You have a gun and all we have is your word. Hell, we don't even have  _that_  at this point."

"Take a leap of faith," the Man said, "and count your blessings."

"We're not intimidated by punks with guns," Ford said. Indeed, he returned the Man's steely glare with a menacing look of his own. "You won't believe what we've dealt with, and it was a lot more dangerous than some crazy son of a bitch."

"Yeah, I'm sure, Professor Kook. You and your nutcase girlfriend have dealt with ETs and Bigfeet and all that shit, I know. Well, I'm sure they're all scary in the recesses of your skull, but out in the real world they don't mean shit. Not when there are men with money and guns and power and influence. Aliens and monsters suddenly don't seem so scary next to all of that."

"I assure you there are far more frightening things in the world than a man with a gun," Ford insisted. He smiled, teasing his assailant. "Hell, you're not even in the top 250!"

As they argued, Pauline tried to conceal herself further in the shadows. She left as little of herself visible as possible, praying that the Man wouldn't notice her. And her hand started to move towards the gun in her coat...

Then the noise came again. The same indiscernible creak. Then what sounded like a snuffing noise.

Then came a loud, angry roar that shook the mine walls.

"The Snallygaster!" Ford shouted, looking at Pauline in terror. The Man took a few steps back, holding his gun close to his chest, his menacing expression replaced with terror. Pickering looked around in fear, unable to move, unsure what to do.

Ford was right. Right now, a monster seemed more intimidating than a man with a gun. But either one could still be dangerous.

And they were in a mine, besides. Which posed its own problems.

As Ford puzzled this out, Pauline drew her pistol - shocking Ford and panicking Pickering, who ducked for cover behind the desk - and fired a shot at the Man. She missed him, the bullet smashing into the clay wall with a wet thud. The shot echoed loudly through the cavern, deafening everyone.

"We need to get out of here!" Ford shouted, pulling out his magnet gun and grabbing Pauline by the arm.

"You're telling me!" Pauline said, pulling back. "I'd rather take my chances with that son of a bitch than some giant flying monster."

Another gunshot rang out, as if in answer. The bullet crashed into one of the crates, splintering the wood. Pickering yelped and leaped to his feet, grabbing something off the ground before taking off further into the mine.

"Ugh," Ford groaned, running after him. Pauline stood back and aimed her gun at the Man, then saw the men running away from her.

"Seriously, guys?" she said, hesitating a moment before joining them.

Another roar from further down the mine. As they ran, they passed several more rows of crates, more documents, or forgeries, or facsimiles.

"What's the plan?" Pauline said breathlessly.

"Run now, plan later," Ford said, bounding ahead of her.

"Just great!" Pauline screamed. "I had that bastard dead to rights, and you two had to..."

"Why didn't you?" Ford sputtered. "I didn't stop you...you missed."

And she didn't have an answer.

After awhile, they turned a corner into a dead end - a solid wall of mud with some wooden support planks. Then they headed back down the corridor.

Ford saw it first.

"Look, there's some sunlight coming in over there," he said, pointing. "If the creature got in, Let's check it out."

"Check it out?" Pickering asked, wheezing breathlessly. "You mean, where the creature...the Snallygaster...you want to  **check it out**!?"

Ignoring his protests, Ford and Pauline walked down the mine shaft, guns at the ready. Pickering doubled over, still catching his breath, wishing that he'd tried his luck with the gun-toting conspirator instead.

* * *

Rather than pursue them, the Man decided to cut his losses. He wasn't in the mood to get eaten by a Smelly Gipper today...that wasn't his preferred way to go. Not after he'd  _seen_  the damn thing, and what it could evidently. Instead, he decided to fall back on Plan B.

Carefully, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small explosive device. He stood up on the desk, knocking aside the stacks of files piled on top of it, and fixed the device to the roof of the mine.

It wasn't guaranteed to destroy the whole thing, of course (such a small device probably wouldn't), but it would at least collapse the roof on top of the files and crush them.

And quite, possibly, trap Ford and Pauline and the archival doofus down there with them. That was a bonus.

Better to destroy the evidence than to leave the chance that it would be found. His bosses wouldn't be happy, but they would understand. And with thirty additional sites, there was plenty more material to work with.

 _Have fun playing with your monster,_  he thought to himself, stepping down off the desk and turning back to the elevator.  _Some of us have more important things to do. Good luck._

And he smiled as the elevator door closed.

* * *

Ford followed the light until he reached the middle of a large chamber. There was a large hole eroded in the side of the mountain. The rain outside had stopped, though there were still puddles and the smell of moist dirt everywhere. The light dappled down on a pile of dirt and rubble, and what looked like discarded mining equipment.

And as they approached, they saw it.

Sort of. It was a large creature brooding in the shadows, breathing heavily.

Ford put his arm across Pauline's chest, holding her back. He aimed his gun at the creature and slowly approached it.

"Everyone, careful," Ford whispered as he moved. "Don't provoke it..."

They saw the animal raise its head towards them. And something glowed in the dark - its large, single eye.

It screamed, and threw something in their direction.

Ford backed away, watching as the object tumbled down the small mound of debris. After a moment he stole a look and felt a wave of nausea as he recognized it...

Chet Wilcox. Bleeding and torn and indisputably dead.

Ford let the terror and revulsion wash over him, then straightened himself up. He stepped forward with his gun, watching Pauline, who had her own weapon drawn, and Pickering, who backed away slowly.

"Come out and show yourself, Snallygaster!" Ford said, suddenly challenging the creature. "We have you cornered, it's no use hiding!"

Bold words from a human encountering a monster four times his size. And Ford knew it. But it had killed his friend,

"Show yourself!" he commanded again, charging his magnet gun up to full blast.

The creature let out a cry and hopped up onto the rubbish pile, staring at Ford intently with its eye. Ford, for his part, examined its grotesque physique, the mixture of bird and animal features, the vulture wings with bat hands twitching on the end. The eye seemed like the least interesting part.

Yet, as it drew close, it didn't seem overly angry or afraid. It coolly looked Ford over, more curious than afraid, more intrigued than challenging. Then it heard a noise and cocked its head to the right, seeing Pauline set her feet as she aimed the gun directly at its head.

"Ford, what do we do now?" Pauline said, her voice barely above a whisper.

"I don't have any idea," Ford said. "It doesn't seem dangerous or angry."

"If this is its nest or den or whatever, why isn't it lashing out at us?" Pauline continued, watching as the creature scratched at the dirt with its foot. "It's treating us like guests."

"Maybe," Ford said. He caught sight of Chet's body again, and flushed with anger.

"We aren't going to hurt you," Ford said, as if the creature could understand him, though he kept his gun within sight. "We just want to examine you and maybe...I dunno, take some measurements."

The Snallygaster responded by moving its head back and forth between Ford and Pauline. It seemed confused about what to do.

"Ford, I don't think it speaks English," Pauline reminded him.

"No, but if we talk we can keep it interested," Ford said, slowly moving closer.

To his surprise, the Snallygaster took two heavy steps down the mound and reached out its beak towards Ford. Ford initially recoiled but then allowed the monster to sniff him; it even nudged him with his beak, playfully.

"Why did you kill him?" Ford asked quietly. He didn't really expect an answer; mostly he was thinking out loud. It seemed so weird that this creature would kill one human intruder and let the others go. It must have its reasons, whatever they are. But how to determine them.

Ford was puzzling this out when the creature opened its mouth. And to Ford's horror, he saw it disgorge something.

At first he thought it might be vomiting, or sticking out a tongue. But then Ford got a good look. And what he saw made his stomach lurch again.

Tentacles. A dozen slimy, glistening, bright-pink tentacles with hooks on the end, coming out of the creature's mouth and spilling onto the ground.

Ford watched in horrified fascination as the tentacles reached down and felt their way towards Wilcox's body. They latched themselves onto him and seemed to feed, tearing away small chunks of flesh and feeding them into its maw.

Ford backed away, appalled but fascinated as he watched the creature's unique eating habit. Any anger he retained about his friend's fate was lost in the reverie of a scientist making a momentous discovery.

Pauline, however, wasn't having it. She raised her gun and aimed at the creature's head.

"Pauline, don't!" Ford said.

**BANG!**

The shot rang out and struck the Snallygaster in the side of its head. The head jerked back, the tentacles sliding reflexively back into its throat. It swallowed and let out a quick groan, then looked over at Pauline, fixing its eye onto her, as if asking why she'd done that.

Then it screamed. And turned its body towards her. And prepared to leap...

And then flew backward, as Ford blasted it with his magnet gun. It toppled onto its side, twitching, head spilling out several tentacles onto the ground.

Ford rushed past. "Let's get out of here!" he shouted, beckoning Pauline and Pickering to follow. "I hit it with everything I had, but it might only stun it."

And the threesome ran back down the mine away from the creature. Ford heard it stirring, but didn't stop to look back.

Eventually, they stopped halfway across the mine to catch their breath. They heard the Snallygaster grunting and wheezing behind them, but it wasn't making any efforts to chase them.

"Mine must be too narrow for it to get through," Ford said. "We should be safe, at least until we get to the surface."

"Not very reassuring," Pickering said.

"I suppose you've satisfied your scientific curiosity?" Pauline asked.

"For now," Ford said. "I might want to come back and examine it under more controlled conditions..."

"Ford, no," she insisted. "We're not coming back."

" **You**  don't have to do anything!" Ford said, his voice brimming with anger. "I'm a scientist, and I investigate creatures like this all the time. You're damn right that I'm going to make another visit to check this guy out..."

"Even though it almost killed us?" Pauline asked. "Think about what you're saying, Ford."

"Especially because it almost tried to kill us," Ford said. "I need to make more detailed observations, watch its feeding habits in more detail, its flight patterns, its behavior. Determine how it tracks and kills its prey. I learned almost nothing except for..."

"Ford, always the scientist!" Pauline said angrily. "Always asking questions about how something works, not caring that it almost fucking killed us! That it killed and  **ate**  your  _friend_! Not caring about human beings instead of your weird, stupid monster"

"I can't do anything about that!" Ford snapped. "I feel bad for Chet - he was a good man, and did a lot of useful research. And yes, I would have considered him a friend. But he's dead, and there's no changing that. I can still study the creature..."

"Do you realize how cold you sound? How much like a fucking sociopath?" Pauline seemed like she was about to explode. "Like a fucking machine. Like you don't even  **care**  that a man you knew just died."

"Of course I..." Ford struggled to process this. "It's not that I don't care, it's just that..."

And it occurred to him, as he sputtered for words, what Pauline was saying.

He thought back to their relationship. All the times he'd asked her excruciating, painful details about her abduction. Even when she clearly didn't want to. Even when it hurt. All because he wanted - needed - to know more.

Because he wanted to understand aliens. But didn't care if he understood people.

And that was his failing all along.

"Guys...I appreciate...I know you guys have...have some history to work out..." Pickering panted and wheezed, struggling to force the words out. "But is this...is this...really the best..."

Then Pickering vomited on the mine floor.

"You all right there?" Pauline asked, patting him on the back. 

"Feeling a little better," Pickering said, standing back up. Then he sighed and fainted into a heap on the ground.

"Well, he's been less than useless," Pauline said sardonically.

"That's not true," Ford insisted. "He helped us find these documents."

"I'm not worried about the documents right now, Ford," Pauline said. She seemed impatient but not angry. "Let's see if we can carry him out of here."

"I'd rather we wake him up," Ford said.

"Well, you're welcome to try," Pauline replied. 

"Pauline..." Ford started to say something, not sure if he should explain or apologize. But nothing came to mind.

Pauline just glowered at him, waiting expectantly. 

Then they heard a noise from further down the mine. The Snallygaster was moving. 

Ford barely had time to react before he heard it.

The  _shriek_.

Suddenly everything was a loud, high-pitched noise in his pain. Scrambling his thoughts. Sending him to the ground, thinking only of an agony that was boring into his brain like a red-hot drill. 

He couldn't hear himself scream. But he screamed anyway.  


	8. Chapter 8

Ford writhed on the ground, hands covering his ears, screaming. He was clearly suffering excruciating pain, yet without an obvious cause. Only he could hear the shrill shrieking noise burning holes in his eardrums.

"Ford, what's wrong?" Pauline sputtered helplessly, bending down next to him. Pickering, who had woken up, shuffled over to them, looking on helplessly.

"Looks like he's having a seizure," Pickering said. "We need to get him out of here."

"A seizure? But he's never had one before," Pauline protested. She reflexively started unbuttoning his jacket.

It certainly didn't resemble any kind of seizure she was familiar with. He wasn't foaming at the mouth, he wasn't shaking or lacking control of his body. His heart was racing, and his hands were cupped around his ears, but otherwise he seemed unafflicted.

He was just screaming, like he was possessed, or as if he was in incredible pain.

Ford screamed again. Short bursts of angry yelping, like he was trying desperately to communicate something.

Farther down the mine shaft, the Snallygaster groaned.

At that, Pauline's mind raced back to their first source, Mr. Keel. How he died mysteriously just a few hours after. And how Chet Wilcox, whose death they'd just confirmed in gruesome detail, had been on the creature's trail when it killed him.

She started putting things together. Even if she didn't have Ford's scientist mind, it seemed obvious to her that the Snallygaster was responsible for Ford's condition. Somehow the creature was targeting him with some kind of ultra high-frequency...damn it, he could explain it better than her!

But it made sense. It explained why it was affecting Ford and neither she nor Pickering. Though she wasn't quite sure why it picked on Ford, in particular. Maybe because Ford had attacked it with the magnet gun (whereas her pistol had only annoyed it)? Maybe because Pickering was a wimp and obviously no real threat? Who knows what, if anything, it was thinking? She was pretty sure that the Snallygaster wouldn't behave long enough for an interview!

"It's getting closer," Pickering fretted, cutting into her thoughts. "Jesus, how are we gonna...?"

"We'll carry him if we have to," Pauline said. "No time for wimping out."

"I'm not really the type to carry things," Pickering admitted.

Then Pauline looked up. And noticed the explosives hanging on the mine wall, just over their heads.

In a moment, her life flashed before her eyes. A life of misery and regret, abductions and nightmares and an inability to find normal happiness. And suddenly, trapped between a monster and a bomb, she knew what she had to do.

"You, Pickles," Pauline snapped.

"Pickering," the archivist corrected.

"Don't care, Pickles," Pauline said, re-loading her gun. "Get Ford the hell out of here. Now. I'll try and hold this thing off until the two of you get to safety."

Pickering hesitated, looking at Ford, then at her.

"Are you saying...?" He still couldn't believe it.

"Don't worry about me. I've never had a life to lose. Ford does. And I'm guessing you do, too. If I make it out, great. If not, well, no more nightmares."

Pickering stared for another moment, not sure what to do, perhaps wondering how chivalrous it was to

"Didn't you hear me, Pickles?" she barked angrily. "Get your ass moving, now, before I shoot you myself."

The creature made another loud snarl, and the mine shook under its footsteps. At that, and Pauline's continuing glare, the archivist finally snapped into action. Then he latched on to Ford's arm and tried lifting him off the ground, straining under his weight.

"What are we gonna do about all this?" Pickering protested, gesturing to the crates of documents and forgeries. "Can't just leave it here!"

He had a point - this cache of documents was the whole reason she'd dragged Ford out here to begin with. But, she reasoned, there were plenty of other sites with other documents that they could find later. And Ford knew there was a mystery to solve.

And that, she realized, would be enough to keep things going, files or not.

"Goddammit, none of that matters if we're all dragon food," Pauline told Pickering. "There are other files we'll have to track down later. Now, beat it. I'm not kidding."

Pickering nodded, then carried Ford, still screaming and slowly made their way towards the elevator. Pauline looked back at them, wistfully, ignoring for a moment the giant monster trying to force its way through the mine, the bomb blinking over her head.

 _Ford, I'm sorry,_  she thought, watching her ex for possibly the last time.  _But it's for the best._

* * *

The Snallygaster struggled to fit through the mine. Pauline, hiding behind a crate of documents, watched it try to stick its long bird neck through an opening and sniff the air. She heard it growl and smelled a foul rusty stink emitting from its mouth, followed by a sick gurgle.

Pauline knew that her .38 wouldn't do much against the creature - not when she'd shot it in the skull without leaving so much as a scratch. The best she could hope for was to distract it long enough, at the very least, to save Ford, or to blow up the explosive and trap or destroy the creature. If it wasn't far enough into the mine, it wouldn't work, as the damn thing could just fly back out through the whole in the roof.

The monster, nonetheless, squeezed its wings and shoulders through the wall, its little bat claws clinging desperately to the wall, trying to pull itself through. It was clearly aggravated, and wasn't thinking clearly enough to extract itself and fly outside. It wanted blood, it wanted to defend its home, and it would do both of those things however it damn well pleased.

Pauline looked at the creature, trying to force itself through, then up at the explosive. Then at the gun in her hand.

She didn't know if it had a timer or was being remote-controlled by the jackass from earlier. She couldn't rely on it to go off at the appropriate time. She had to try her best and hope. Or else to make it happen.

She stepped out from behind the crate and stood in front of the monster.

"You want Ford? You're gonna have to eat some lead first."

And she raised her gun and fired a shot, which struck the creature on the shoulder blade. It didn't flinch, but it did turn its head towards her, squinting its one eye in curiosity mixed with rage.

"Not so tough underground, huh?" she said, hoping to egg the monster on. "Can't fly or do any of your weird Snally shit down here, huh? Kind of in a jam. Well, that's tough."

She fired again. The bullet ricocheted off its beak, with the creature snarling loudly in response, stretching out its neck and snapping.

"I don't care if you kill me," she told the creature, trying to aim for its eyeball. "No one on the Planet will give a shit when I'm gone. But you're gonna leave Ford alone. He's got more to offer than either of us."

 **BANG!**  The shot hit the creature in the face, causing it to scream.

"Damn, I can't believe I'm explaining myself to a dragon," she sighed, before cocking back the hammer again.

 **BANG!**  This shot missed.

Two rounds to go. Starting to sweat, she looked over her shoulder and saw the explosive start to blink faster. Or maybe she was imagining it?

Hard to tell. Her heart was racing and her head spinning with excitement as adrenaline surged through her. She felt thrilled and scared and yet, strangely relieved about what was happening.

Now the Snallygaster fell to the ground and pressed against the floor with its claws. It managed to push its shoulders and wings through the passageway, only to become caught around its mid section. It cried out again, thrashing its neck about.

Pauline's eyes widened in terror as it opened its mouth, and the tentacles came out. Reaching towards her.

She raised her gun again and aimed it at the creature's eye, now wide with terror and rage.

**BANG!**

The creature squealed in pain, titling its head back, tentacles spilling out of the mouth, around its neck. It tried to correct itself, shaking its head, tentacles smashing against the mine walls, the arms and wings again becoming tangled against the mine floor. Unable to escape, hurting and exhausting itself with its desperate movements.

Pauline glanced at the elevator, just once, wondering if it was worth trying to escape. Maybe she could get out of here after all. Maybe she could chat and explain herself to Ford and they could, if not get back together, at least be friends and partners in crime. The possibilities suddenly seemed very real.

Until reality, in the form of a Snallygaster tentacle, set her straight.

She felt the gross thing, feeling like slimy leather, sink into her leg. It didn't hurt - in fact it seemed to numb instead, as if injecting her with some kind of poison. She felt her whole leg quickly lose feeling, felt a heaviness spreading up her body that prevented her from struggling against the beast. Suddenly realized that, no matter what happened, she was dying and it was only a matter of how.

Still, even as it pulled her body across the cave floor, Pauline had enough wit and strength to wrap one arm around a rock, delaying her fate by a few moments. The creature lunged forward, infuriated, and managing to wrench another segment of its body through the passageway. Then, with her free hand, Pauline aimed her gun at the explosive on the wall.

Her last conscious thought wasn't of Ford or the files or the conspiracy or the Snallygaster or the aliens who had ruined her life. Instead, for some reason, she thought back to the last news broadcast she'd been watching before the nightmare began. The last time she was content. The last time the world, as crazy as it was, made sense.

The Snallygaster let out another shriek and unspooled another tentacle, which wrapped around Pauline's arm just as she pulled the trigger.

**BANG!**

* * *

Much later, Ford sat in his hotel room, dazed and exhausted, still recovering from their ordeal. Pickering watched over him warily.

"We got out of the mine just moments before the whole thing blew," Pickering explained. "Pauline must have known. She insisted that she stay and that I take you out of there."

Ford shook his head, still sore and hurting from the nightmarish experience. "Any chance she made it out?"

Pickering shook his head. "The explosion collapsed the mine and most of the building on top of it. Must have been one heck of a bomb to do that much damage. At least it was enough to bury the Snallygaster with her."

Ford sat up on the bed, cradling his head in his hands. He felt guilty about her death, wishing that she'd been able to escape. But more than that, he remembered that their last conversation was an argument about his reaction to Chet's death. And he replayed that conversation in his mind.

Maybe she was right, he thought. Maybe I do take things like that too clinically. But realistically, what was he _supposed_  to do? Perhaps it was cowardly, but he would rather live to escape another day than to fight a creature to the death over a friend's corpse. Chet Wilcox was dead, and no amount of misguided vengeance would change that fact. No amount of guilt or remorse would make him live again.

But maybe he could have been a bit more compassionate, under the circumstances. Especially since it was virtually the last words that they exchanged.

"Sorry about your friend, though," Pickering said, as if reading Ford's thoughts. "I figured you guys..." He prudently left the sentence hanging.

"Thanks," Ford grumbled. "Yeah, we were together ages ago, but...well, there's been a lot of water under the bridge."

"Still can't believe she did that. She must really have cared for you."

The words struck Ford, even though it didn't seem quite right.

Did he love her? Many years ago, he thought he had. But not any more. Not even now.

Maybe he shouldn't hold such a minor lie against her. It was well-intentioned, it was trying to keep him safe. But he still couldn't stand anyone who double-crossed him, whether for good or ill, even if the end result. And while it led to a fascinating discovery, it still rubbed him the wrong way.

"I think she hated herself more than she loved me," Ford said. "She had a rough life - something happened to her as a kid that ruined her, made her perpetually miserable, and she never got over it. I tried to help her as best I could, but..." He sighed. "I wasn't good at it. In fact, someone like me...I was probably the worst thing that could have happened to her."

And that, more than what had happened in the mine, was what he really regretted.

"Hmm." Pickering wanted to comfort his acquaintance, but didn't know him well enough to say much of anything.

"Well, anyway..." he said, reaching into his jacket. "We did get something from that whole mess."

He pulled out a manila folder and laid it on the hotel table. Ford was still too exhausted to get up, but he leaned forward in interest.

"Got a chance to look it over once we made it back here," Pickering said, pulling out the first sheet of paper and handing it to Ford. "Remember the cataloging data on that file we were looking at down in the mine? Well, this is a directory of all the storage sites throughout the country. Looks like there's at least forty of them."

Ford read the document, which indeed listed further "sites" with code names - invariably French words, or names, some of them crossed out or annotated.

"Surprised it isn't encrypted in any way," he said, handing the paper. He was too tired to give it more than a cursory glance for now.

"Might well be," he said. "Those French words certainly don't make any sense, beyond I suppose their historical significance. I'll have a friend of mine take a look at it."

"Can you leave a copy with me?" Ford asked. "Or at least some of them? I'll take them back home and give them a look. One of my friends," he said, thinking obliquely of Dipper, "is good at this kind of thing."

Pickering nodded. "I'll try and make you a copy before I take off. I have to go back to DC and report to my boss before doing anything else. But at least we can take some steps in the right direction."

Ford nodded, daunted at the prospect of where to even  _begin_  investigating such a massive project.

"Do you need anything?" Pickering asked. "Should I take you to a doctor or the hospital or something like that?"

"I should be fine," Ford insisted, laying his head back on the pillow. "Just give me an aspirin and I'll sleep it off. Unless there's some kind of after-effect from the scream, I'll be all right."

"I hope so," Pickering said. "Sorry I wasn't much help back there..."

"Are you kidding?" Ford said. "I'd have been dead in that cave if it wasn't for you. Besides, you aren't the first person to lose his cool when faced with a giant cryptid."

"Well, be that as it may..." Pickering said. "I'm gonna go back to my apartment. I've got a safe, a gun and a triple-locked door, so everything should be secure there. Maybe you can stop by before you leave?"

"How about tomorrow?" Ford said, his eyes still closed. "I feel like I need at least 12 hours of sleep before I'm back to normal."

"Fair enough," Pickering said. "I'll leave you alone for now, and...I look forward to working with you."

Pickering exited without further acknowledgment from Ford. Once he was alone, his fatigue fought with the thoughts swimming through his head.

Did he trust Pickering? Pickering, after all, had lied to him, too. But he didn't feel the same sense of betrayal as he did with Pauline, and could almost forgive the man given his job and what he was doing. 

Still...he had to tread carefully. He'd dealt with the government more times than he cared to recall, and had to remember that their motives were rarely (try never) pure, and only accidentally in league with yours. He would have to keep a wary eye on the investigator and only cooperate as far as seemed safe. But for now, he was willing to give him benefit of the doubt.

Besides, once Ford was back in Gravity Falls, he'd have the Mystery Team. Stan and McGucket, and Dipper and Mabel, and their friends and associates whom he knew he could trust, who would have his back no matter what. Who could pool their talents and resources to unravel this project, as they'd done so many times in the past. Even if it seemed far more daunting than anything.

Still, what was a massive national conspiracy after he'd traveled across the Multiverse? That thought had kept him going through a lot over the past few years. He certainly wasn't going to stop now.

Ford had just about nodded off to sleep when he heard his hotel phone ring. He picked it up, surprised, figuring it was the front desk. 

"Hello, Professor Pines," a familiar voice intoned on the other end. "Surprised you made it out of the mine, and not entirely a pleasant surprise. Well, hopefully you realize how serious all of this is. I'd strongly advise you, for your own good, not to go any further. We'll be listening."

After the voice cut out, he heard Pauline's familiar voice from a phone call earlier that week.

"Ford, I can't believe it's you! Hey listen, I've got a mystery..." 

And Ford hung up, then disconnected the phone. Before he could fully absorb the call or worry about what it meant, he was fast asleep.  

**THE END**


End file.
